Among other things, Florian Siegmund saw fit to write:

> I found a photograph which I guess is spotting the additional color
> stripes (a so called 'supernumerary rainbow') that you mentioned. And no,
> my include file doesn't simulate those, beacause in this picture, the
> contrast was increased artificially. So you will never see this phenomenon
> in nature with your own eyes. That's the simply reason why I left them out
> :)

Yes, I found that in Wikipedia shortly after posting ;)

However, it says that "the very existence of supernumerary rainbows was
historically a first indication of the wave nature of light, and the first
explanation was provided by Thomas Young in 1804." I doubt they had
contrast-enhanced photographs in 1804...

I have an article (in the Spanish version of Scientific American) about
theories of the rainbow, and it talks about the supernumerary rainbow as a
visible effect (though faint, rare, and more prominent at the top of the
arc, where the drops are smaller). It also mentions the failure of Newton's
theory to explain this supernumerary rainbow as a serious flaw.

P.S. The original article seems to be: "The Theory of the Rainbow", by H.
Moyses Nussenzweig (Scientific American, 236, 116-127, 1977).

-- 
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