Rainbows with Lulu Miller

Summary

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You're Wrong About — “Rainbows with Lulu Miller”

Host: Sarah Marshall
Guest: Lulu Miller
Release Date: May 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this special Pride Month episode, Sarah Marshall is joined by acclaimed podcaster and Radiolab co-host, Lulu Miller, for a radiant and surprisingly deep reconsideration of rainbows. While rainbows are often dismissed as trivial, childish, or simply decorative, Sarah and Lulu reveal their rich scientific and cultural histories, their role in queer iconography, and what they tell us about color, perception, infinity, and even the limits of human understanding. With playful banter, awe, and a little philosophy, they illuminate just how much meaning and mystery is packed into that arc of color in the sky.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Personal and Cultural Associations with Rainbows

• Sarah’s Childhood Memories:

  • Recalls being taught the science behind rainbows by parents, contrasting that knowledge with imagining how rainbows seemed to people before the science was known.
    • “It always makes me think now of what was it like for people before we knew the science of thunder and rainbows?” (03:06)

• Modern Connotations:

  • Rainbows are associated with childhood, cartoons, “girlishness," and frivolity.
  • Discussion of aesthetic trends: Lisa Frank, My Little Pony, unicorns, and how “anything associated with little girls is considered to be dumb in American culture.” (07:05)

2. Rainbows in World Myth and Folklore

• Powerful Omens and Bridges:

  • Rainbows as bridges between worlds—e.g., the Norse Bifröst, Greek Iris, and bridges to the afterlife in New Guinea.
  • “In Norse mythology, rainbows were seen as like, a literal bridge that you could, you know, bridge from the gods.” (07:32)

• Caution and Superstition:

  • Legends warning not to point at rainbows, lest your finger rot, highlighting reverence and caution.
  • “In a lot of not connected indigenous cultures, there was this idea that if you pointed at a rainbow, your finger could rot off.” (10:35)

• Irish Lore & Leprechauns:

  • The “pot of gold” myth originates from much older, darker leprechaun legends tied to water sprites and Irish-American struggles.
  • “The pot of gold really kind of blossomed when Irish Americans were facing poverty. It was this idea that, like, maybe you could get some luck.” (09:26)

3. The Science and Philosophy of Rainbows

• Ancient Theories (Aristotle):

  • Rainbows as adulterated sunlight—pure white light muddied by atmospheric impurities.
  • “His idea was like, I think sunlight is a pure white substance. And that should it hit a patch of impurities in the air ... the light gets tinted or muddied into these colors.” (14:18, Lulu)

• Medieval Advances (Nasir al-Din al-Tusi):

  • Medieval Persian polymath, championed the idea of infinite paths to mixing colors and advanced trigonometry.
  • “He basically starts, like, flirting with this idea that maybe there are actually infinite colors.” (21:48)

• Infinity and Human Perception:

  • Digression into the terror and comfort of infinity (including quotes, Amy Tan, and the singularity poem by Marie Howe at 28:16).
  • Sarah: “What if love is this sort of collective atomic memory of this time when we were all one thing, you know?” (32:45)
  • Lulu: “There might be infinite colors in the rainbow, but the idea ... didn't really take off.” (38:06)

4. Newton, Color, and the “Seven Colors”

• Newton’s Prism Experiments:

  • Newton proves that white light is made of all the rainbow’s colors, not changed or tinted by the prism, but separated into its components.
  • Attributing the “seven colors” (ROYGBIV) more to numerological symmetry than empirical observation.
  • “He just was like, seven’s a really pretty number because that is so him ... there were seven known planets, days of the week ... and so he was basically like, musical scale seven, color seven. That feels good.” (47:04)

• But... Infinite Colors:

  • Later science (and artists, poets, stoners) push back; there are infinite gradations of color, not just “seven,” and color perception is subjective.
  • “There aren’t seven concrete colors. There are really infinite colors in the rainbow.” (54:21, Lulu)
  • Alan’s “Infinite Colors” song for Terrestrials at (48:09–50:07).

5. Rainbows as a Queer Emblem (Pride Coda)

• The Story of the Pride Flag:
  • Designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978 for San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade, assisted by Lynn Sagerblom (“the tie-dye queen”).
  • The rainbow selected for its beauty, naturalness, and to represent the diversity and naturalness of queerness—“queerness is natural.”
  • Originally eight colors (each with meanings: pink for sex/hot sex, indigo for serenity, etc.), later reduced to six for practical dye reasons.
  • Evolving symbols: added stripes for people of color and trans people (Progress Pride Flag, 2017+).
  • “The reason why was, yes, it's beautiful. And also it represents the diversity of sexuality and genders in the queer experience, but mainly the fact that it was found in nature because queerness is natural.” (58:08, Lulu)
  • Discussion of “rainbow washing” vs. overt hostility and the importance of ever-increasing inclusivity.
  • “Inclusivity, which was the original rainbow and which we have now learned, is inherent in the rainbow. Infinite ways, infinite colors.” (66:35, Lulu)

6. Epistemic Humility and Universalism

• Complexity Over Simple Stories:
  • Lulu on evolving as a storyteller/reporter:
    • “Story is often the enemy because, you know, stories about, like, cutting off details and disfiguring reality ... What I'm at least trying to do now is to, like, capture more and more complexity and then just, like, present that in a digestible way.” (33:50, Lulu)
  • Science as an ever-evolving process, not a monopoly on truth; importance of indigenous and plural wisdoms.

7. Rainbows as Bridges—Science, Mystery, and Beauty

• The ultimate lesson: rainbows are both out there (physical phenomena) and in here (relation to perception, culture, belief)—bridges between worlds, times, sciences, and people.
• “The poets, the painters, Nasir Al Dun, Al Tusi, our guy, this idea that, like, the lines are subjective ... It's like a bridge between worlds. It's a bridge between an inside and outside kind of being.” (54:21, Lulu)
• Rainbows inspire scientific progress, wonder, and community—inspiring everything from lasers and fiber optics to movements for love and inclusivity.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Rainbows’ Reputation:

  • “They have become, you know, unicorns, My Little Pony ... They're a little, like, frivolous vibes.” (05:50, Lulu)

• On the Math of Rainbows:

  • “He's just inventing math right now ... He's just this incredible thinker, and he's doing it at a time of incredible upheaval.” (18:35, Lulu, on al-Tusi)

• On the Terror and Comfort of Infinity:

  • “Infinity is scary because it so eludes our perceptions. And maybe at this moment, I'm like, it's so great that there is so much truth and reality out there that eludes our ability to perceive it ... If the universe were within our perceptions, it would be really tiny.” (26:57, Sarah)

• On Human Perception and Togetherness:

  • “What if love is like not just all those sort of practical things that, of course, make sense, but also this sort of like collective atomic memory of this time when we were all one thing, you know?” (32:45, Sarah)

• On Roy G. Biv:

  • “He just was like, seven’s a really pretty number because that is so him ... there were seven known planets, days of the week ... musical scale seven, color seven. That feels good.” (47:04, Lulu)
  • “Sometimes things are too handy. Because the truth is sometimes less catchy.” (50:09, Sarah)

• On the Evolution of the Pride Flag:

  • “And the reason why was, yes, it's beautiful. And also it represents the diversity of sexuality and genders in the queer experience, but mainly the fact that it was found in nature because queerness is natural.” (58:08, Lulu)

• On Complexity, Inclusion, and Resistance:

  • “Inclusivity ... is inherent in the rainbow. Infinite ways, infinite colors. ... really about showing, making sure all of the colors are shown and represented.” (66:35, Lulu)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:40–03:00: Sarah and Lulu’s personal rainbow associations
• 06:57–11:21: Rainbows in myth, power, and folklore
• 12:54–15:37: Aristotle’s early theory of rainbows
• 16:15–21:34: Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, “infinite colors,” and historical advances
• 22:08–30:09: Digression on infinity, human knowledge, and connection (incl. poem reading at 28:16)
• 38:54–47:07: Newton, prisms, seven colors, and beliefs about color
• 48:09–51:32: Alan’s song about infinite colors; artists push back on “seven”
• 54:21: Lulu summarizes: “There aren’t seven concrete colors—there are really infinite colors in the rainbow.”
• 57:27–63:13: Pride coda: origin and meaning of the rainbow flag, evolution, current symbolism
• 68:39: Aphid/Parthenogenesis fact as a coda on nature’s abundance and diversity

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Fun and Poignant Closing Facts

• The Pride flag was originally hand-dyed and sewn with natural dyes by a group of queer artists in San Francisco.
• Nature is so much wilder than we think—not only in colors, but in parthenogenesis: aphids (and some birds, reptiles) can reproduce without males, forming large societies of daughters and grandmothers. (70:14)

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Final Takeaway

Rainbows are much more than just pretty or cute: they are scientific wonders, ancient symbols, sources of myth, tools for discovery, and dynamic expressions of infinite diversity—both in light and in love. This episode celebrates curiosity and connection, urging us to see complexity and inclusivity as strengths, not inconveniences, in our understanding of the world and each other.

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For more from Lulu Miller:

• Listen to “Terrestrials” (nature podcast, including “The Bridge” episode on rainbows)
• Her work on Radiolab
• Upcoming book on biomimicry

For further listening/reading:

• Marie Howe’s poem “Singularity” (read at 28:37)
• Alan’s “Infinite Colors” song (48:09)

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Transcript

[A]

Well, he's probably riding around on a Mongolian pony all day. You know, you start thinking about infinity as you get bounced around on there. Welcome to Yarangabout, the show where we are celebrating Pride Month with rainbows and Lulu Miller. Lulu, hello. You are a great legend of podcasts and a bisexual seagull right here with us.

[B]

That is my bio.

[A]

I held out a fry and he flapped right over.

[B]

Exactly. You showed a french fry on the moon, and here I am. Because a couple prides ago, we did the. We did the very homosexual and bisexual seagulls.

[A]

Okay, it's such a good time that everyone should listen to, so I thought,

[B]

yeah, I could bring you some more queer wares in the form of a rainbow. And, you know, I feel a little sheepish about rainbows because I'm like. I feel like part of what's so lovely about you're wrong about is, you know, you get into these, like, dark, twisted corners, and maybe everyone thinks rainbows are just gonna be puffy, frivolous candy,

[A]

but we're big fans of puff and candy.

[B]

Okay, but don't worry, because I would argue rainbows, much like rats, are maligned and misunderstood inevitably, you know. Yeah.

[A]

Like, for example, I feel like I'm Larry King tonight. Rainbows. Do they really have a pot of gold at the end, or is it all a bunch of hokum? Let's listen to Leon and Des Moines.

[B]

So, well, first. First of all, what are your. What are your associations with rainbows? Any. Any and all quick gut.

[A]

I freaking love rainbows. And, you know, the other day, and I don't think I even said this to you, I was driving to my mom's house, and I saw a rainbow. And then I realized it was a double rainbow, and it was also storming, and there was a. What's the noun for a piece of lightning? A bolt of lightning. Oh, my God. Sarah. And I saw a little lightning bolt next to the freaking rainbow. Lulu.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

That.

[B]

I mean, the power, the luck.

[A]

It was really cool. It was like driving into a Led Zeppelin cover.

[B]

The amount of atmospheric things. Yeah, that's great. That's great. Okay, so for you. I don't know. I don't know. What do you. What do you think about with rainbows? Where do you usually you see them in the wild? What do they stir in you?

[A]

Well, I guess I just think they're great. And I think they often create a feeling in me of, like, what did it feel? Because I was raised by two parents who like to explain things to me, and Generally did a pretty good job. So the rainbows, they're like, well, it's because there's moisture in the air and it acts as a prism and it makes this big rainbow. And then you could have that demonstrated to you by the fact that we didn't have this when I was a kid. But today you have the shimmery window film that makes little rainbows or a piece of nicely cut glass, like a sun catcher or something, I guess. So it was something that you could observe as a kid and be like, yes, I understand. This is happening on different scales. And having that information available as opposed to. It always makes me think now of what was it like for people before we knew the science of thunder and rainbows and stuff to sort of deal with these kind of weather events, Especially when your ability to survive was so dependent on what the weather was doing generally?

[B]

Absolutely. Well, that's a great. That's a great place to start. So maybe we'll. We'll go back to at least some of the cultural associations, the indigenous cultural associations, the legends about rainbows before we had, you know, the sort of more modern physicist take. But I will say, like, culturally, you know, I'm just realizing there's a rainbow on the. You're wrong about logo. Isn't there?

[A]

Yeah, no, there is. Yeah, exactly. It's the rainbow show.

[B]

How did that get there?

[A]

I don't know. It was something that Mike came up with back in the day. It was like, probably like 2019 or something. Because our previous logo, real ones will remember, was just like a stock image of, like, a hand giving the thumbs down on, like, a salmon background. And it was meant to emulate, like,

[B]

I didn't know that.

[A]

Joaquin Phoenix and Gladiator, I think, which I haven't seen. Oh, my God. Where he's a little gay boy who wants to execute hot men or whatever. And we had the logo for a while, and at a certain point, we were like, we might be outgrowing this logo, which looked more like it was. I don't know. I don't know. And so the rainbow was like this. I think this idea that we both kind of intuitively recognized, I'm assuming as, like, feeling more expansive and optimistic and that it's crucially going up, you know? And this idea, I always interpreted it as like, you know, if you have more information, it's like a positive thing because it helps you grow, as opposed to being, like, wrong, you know?

[B]

Right. Like, and you dumb. Yeah, I love that. Okay. Expansive. Put a. Put a pin in that.

[A]

Word.

[B]

We'll circle back. Oh, gosh. Fun fact about rainbows. They're actually fully a circle. They're not just an arch. It's just the horizon gets in the way.

[A]

You know, I've seen a couple where it's. You're like. You can kind of see it. Have you seen that?

[B]

I've never seen it, but I guess if you are in an airplane, you could see it or, like, on a mountain, you'd be able to see a little bit more.

[A]

Yeah, I feel like I've seen a couple rainbows maybe when I was at an elevation that are, like, where you can kind of start to see that circle happening.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I think. But, like, I guess. I guess just culturally, I mean, they're often. I think they have become, you know, unicorns. My Little Pony. You see them on a cereal box. They're a little, like, frivolous vibes.

[A]

Well, and we also had the 2,000 teens when, interestingly, we had this sort of, like, unicorns and rainbows coded sort of wave of, I guess, aesthetics.

[B]

And. Yeah.

[A]

It's hard to even define in retrospect. It's kind of like we kind of said something. It was unicorn if it was just, like, magenta.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is interesting.

[B]

But like, Lisa Frank, Trapper Keeper.

[A]

Yes. Yeah. The little girl aesthetic. And a big part of stickers, of course, as well.

[B]

Stickers is rainbow.

[A]

And the. What. What else? Of course, the. The best section in Fantasia with. With the Pegasuses.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And everybody. They had the, like, rainbow falling in the water, and then it colored the different parts of the water different colors, and you could, like, dip them up, which was so cool.

[B]

Mm.

[A]

And very disappointing to not be able to do. Yeah. I think they're just. Yeah. They become like a. A part of cartoon aesthetic, too.

[B]

And a little. But a little, I think, a little frivolous, A little, you know, girlish, sugary, saccharine.

[A]

Yeah. Well, anything associated with little girls is considered to be dumb in. In American culture of our view.

[B]

Yes. Of young women. Okay.

[A]

So.

[B]

But rainbows historically were these things of huge power. So, like, interestingly, in all kinds of cultures, you know, before they were connected, a rainbow was often seen as some kind of bridge.

[A]

It is brick shaped.

[B]

It's bridge shaped, and it's, you know, kind of goes from sky to earth or looks like it does. And so in Norse mythology, rainbows were seen as like, a literal bridge that you could, you know, bridge from the gods. You could. You could like, walk. The gods could walk down to Earth, or you could walk up to the gods, like the Tuala of New guinea side, as a bridge to the dead, to the sort of afterlife. In Greek myths, Iris, the messenger for the gods, maybe like a handmaiden to Hera, would pass usually messages, but usually warnings down the rainbow.

[A]

Well, yeah, I mean, that's just practical. And I guess when you see a rainbow in the distance, like you do. Because of course, when I was a kid, you know, my dad be like, oh, Sarah, there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And then he'd be like, oh, my God, it looks like it's ending in our house.

[B]

And then you'd be like, yes.

[A]

Yeah. And then you're like, where'd it go? And he's like, I don't know. I guess it was in another house. And you're like, ah, these rainbows, they're hard to track.

[B]

Yeah, they're pesky.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Of course, the leprechaun, the pot of gold, like, though the leprechaun myth, I guess, sort of was originally back in the 8th century, was like a Celtic tradition of a water sprite.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's a long timeline for leprechauns. But they're so small. They live longer.

[B]

Yeah. And they, I guess, were originally, originally much more like the horror movie leprechaun. They were like, very sinister. Like their origin was in trying to drown a king. But then they're in the 19th century there.

[A]

Well, maybe he had it coming, you know, I don't know.

[B]

Oh, I'm sure he did. I mean, a Celtic king in the 700s, probs. But then he, like, got more sort of softened in the 19th century and his pranks became less deadly and more like you stole the bacon.

[A]

Or like, see, like an anti. Yeah, yeah, sure. Like a brownie helps around the house and he does a little mischief around the house. He's like a little Irish poltergeist.

[B]

Yes, totally. And. But then there was this sort of, I guess the idea of the pot of gold really kind of blossomed, like when sort of Irish Americans were facing poverty. And it was this idea that, like, maybe you could get some luck. Like this, like, need for a pot of gold. If you see the rainbow, you might have some gold.

[A]

You're like, where's that fucking leprechaun? So it's the idea that when there's a rainbow, there's a leprechaun near nearby, and you gotta find him and get his pot of gold somehow.

[B]

That's. Yeah.

[A]

All right. Is a pot the best way to carry Gold. Because it feels like the pot is already a little heavy.

[B]

That's a great question. Already pretty heavy. You know, he should have had. He was originally. He was a cobbler, so, like, he could have had a shoe bag.

[A]

Right. Or a quilt.

[B]

Okay, but. And, but, But. Sorry, that was my leprechaun digression. But the point is, like. Yeah, that was good for a long time. You know, for cultures all over the world, a rainbow was, like, a very powerful thing. And it could mean, you know, storms ahead or some kind of divine intervention. It was often a bad omen.

[A]

Yeah, well, that makes sense, because I feel like it happens when, like, crazy weather is on the way a lot of the time.

[B]

Yeah. And then another weird thing was, like, again, in a lot of not connected indigenous cultures, there was this idea that if you pointed at a rainbow, your finger could rot off.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

Yeah. And just this idea of, like. I think the point is, like, it's a powerful, sacred thing. Be careful of how you interact with it.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so I just. I just loved finding that out.

[A]

Maybe don't put it on all those stickers. Yeah.

[B]

Because we've totally, like. We've, like, drained that power out in a lot of ways and. And, like, stopped thinking about how they actually occur in nature, which. You're right. Often is around a storm, a very powerful, often deadly thing. So. Okay, so that's kind of this idea that they were, like, this powerful bridge between worlds.

[A]

Yeah, well, they really. They are really. And also between the present moment and the next. And I imagine they also occur sometimes before weather events where people die. So, you know.

[B]

Mm. Okay. So meaning, obviously, is what you make out of it. That depends on your culture, your experience. But we are here. I want to move to the. The substance, the material of a rainbow, because regardless of what it means to you, there have been a lot of people, a lot of scientists, philosophers over the centur, trying to really pin down what it is.

[A]

Yeah. Which would be very difficult back in the day, I would imagine.

[B]

Yeah. Without a lot of tools. And. And they are these weird things because they're not quite like a tree, but they're not. Like, they're out there because you can both point at it, but, like. But then they're a little. Like, it's very hard to understand. Like, are they. Basically, one of the debates was, are they out? Is it out there or is it in here? Like, is it a product of the mind? Oh, like a mirage or like a. Even like a dream, or is it like a tree? But then it's not like a tree because you can't. Like, it was like this pesky. People just weren't sure.

[A]

Right. Now that you ask that, I'm like, well, what is it actually? Because it is like light, which is a product of the sort of range in which we see.

[B]

So, yeah, it's totally tricky. So that's. I'm going to. I mean, most of what I'm going to tell you today is going to kind of build us toward answering that.

[A]

Great.

[B]

Okay. What is it exactly?

[A]

What's a freaking rainbow?

[B]

What is a freaking rainbow? Okay, so one of our first, earliest heavy hitters to weigh in on the matter was Aristotle, of course.

[A]

Hello, Aristotle.

[B]

Yeah. And he was big team. Exo estin Greek for it's out there. Like, it's out there. I think it's. I think it is matter.

[A]

The rainbow is out there.

[B]

The rainbow's out there.

[A]

Was Aristotle Socrates a student? Does it go? Plato, Socrates, Aristotle.

[B]

Sarah, you're probably gonna know that more than me. I do know that he was publishing on rainbows in like, the mid 300 BC times.

[A]

Good for him. That's great. What was I doing back then? Practically nothing.

[B]

Now. I need to know. I don't know the order. I always.

[A]

Okay, yeah, look it up for me. I got a cat here.

[B]

Yeah, it was Socrates, then Plato, then Aristotle. So Aristotle's the baby. So Socrates taught Plato, Plato taught Aristotle. And then, like, isn't one of them fake or something?

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I guess. No. To quote real genius in the immortal last words of Socrates, I drank what? Insert a little rim shot there. Okay.

[B]

Okay. So student of student, Aristotle.

[A]

Yep. His.

[B]

Basically, his idea was like, important Greek dude. Important Greek dude was like, okay, I think here's what a rainbow is. I think sunlight is a pure white substance. And that should it hit a patch of impurities in the air, like mist or dust or something, you know, an impurity of some sort that the light gets tinted or muddied into these colors. And so for him, basically the idea of, like, you see a rainbow after rain. Cause there's all this mist in the air. And so the pure white light gets muddied and, like, disguised and tinted.

[A]

I mean, that seems basically accurate to my understanding. I think I'm on the same technical level as like, a very smart person living over 2,000 years ago.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's my relationship to science.

[B]

It's a very good guess. And like, it's devil in the details of the way in which he's gonna be off is like the between so much of our modern technology. So he is close, Right.

[A]

Because it feels like there's these concepts that recur in these kinds of periods of science where you're like, well, you're right about the outcome, but the logic by which you think that happened is a product of your times. Is that accurate for this? Yeah.

[B]

Oh, absolutely. I mean, it's a stunning guess for the times. It's a totally great guess.

[A]

Yeah. Like, I guess we read Little House on the Prairie and there's a part where everyone gets malaria.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then someone is like, everyone who got malaria ate a watermelon. That's how this malaria spread. And it's like, well, yeah, no, but I mean, how are you gonna know?

[B]

But how are you gonna know? I know. Yeah, just take out the melon part and.

[A]

And maybe when you go to go eat watermelon, you get bitten by a mosquito, you know?

[B]

Yeah. So that was his idea, was like, tinted, muddied, change dirtied, something like that.

[A]

It's been adulterated.

[B]

Adulterated. Adulterated light. And so then, you know, throughout. That kind of. That idea is going to stick for centuries, for a long time. That's pretty much the way. But there was a person who doesn't get as much credit in the rainbow history as I think he should, who's a per. A medieval Persian scholar, Nasir Al Dun. Al Tusi. And this guy was like, Da Vinci. Pre. Da Vinci. Like, he was an intellectual giant. And you could do a whole year wrong about him. I don't know, a ton. But I just did kind of like a deep dive.

[A]

Oh, I would love to do a math you're wrong about. I would be so out of my depth.

[B]

But this guy is like. Okay, let me send you. Can I send you just what he looks like? Cause he was cute, too. On the 700th anniversary of his death, he got an Iranian stamp and he just. Yeah, well, let's just picture him because he's. Okay, wait, let me. He's so smart and so ahead of his time, and it's just. I just want to, like, consider him for a brief moment. Okay. So let's give him a face. And I'm kind of thinking about this guy for a totally different reason right now. Which will be worth the digression, I hope.

[A]

Oh, yeah. I'm always willing to try. Well, yeah, he looks like Michael Gambone. Or like, he looks like. Wait, who's the main. Roy. Logan Roy. Roy. Roy.

[B]

Oh, yeah, he's got Logan Roy.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Yeah. But maybe a little younger.

[A]

He looks exactly Like Logan Roy.

[B]

Oh, fabulous beard.

[A]

He's. Which, yes, is very hot to me. Look, everyone knows that Brian Cox would be sexy to go on a rubber boot hunting weekend with. We all know this.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Okay, so have you seen him as Hannibal Lecter? It's like, the most overtly gay portrayal of Hannibal Lecter, which I think is saying something, in my opinion. I will take other analyses.

[B]

Okay, so. So, okay, so I'll do Nasir Al Duna al Tusi. So he was born in 1201, and, like, he is gonna basically become the forefather of trigonometry. And then he's also gonna be huge in astronomy. He publishes all these star charts, these astronomical atlases that will be used for hundreds of years. And he's, like. Also does all this stuff on ethics. So he's just.

[A]

He's just inventing math right now.

[B]

Yeah, he's just inventing math, and he's doing it by watching the world. Like, he figured out a lot of this stuff by watching stars and observing them.

[A]

That's really cool. And you know what? I always kind of liked trigonometry. Did you like trigonometry at all? I think that's a fun one.

[B]

I did. I was gonna say I did. What did you like about it?

[A]

Well, I guess that it's like an actual thing that I care about, which is triangles and how tall things are.

[B]

Yeah. And it was like. It felt like a secret coat. It was like puzzle vibes. It was just like, you do this, you do this, and then it works. There's something satisfying. Whereas calc suddenly got so abstract that I. That it kind of started to short

[A]

circuit me, and I never got that far. Yeah. After that was when my school let you quit math. And I was like, thank you. Good night.

[B]

Cool. Great. Love a hypotenuse.

[A]

It's been fun.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay. So he's just this, like, incredible thinker, and he's doing it at a time of incredible upheaval. So he's like. For about a decade, he's working in this place. That sounds incredible. It's like an intellectual castle. It's like a library across the castle called Alamut. And there's all these visiting scholars, and he's teaching. And then comes the Mongolian invasion.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And they smash it. They smash the castle. And it's at this point, Genghis Khan's grandson, Hulegu. And anyway, and. But okay. It's making me think about institutions getting absolutely smashed by, like.

[A]

Yeah, like.

[B]

Yeah, okay. Okay. So, like, science getting, like, totally Smashed. So, but so then instead of just like, crying and bemoaning the state of the world, this guy, our guy, Al Din al Tusi, our astronomer, what does he do? He joins Khan's army. He, like, joins the army, but then he ends up getting really close to him and convincing him to build an even fancier scientific observatory. Castle thing.

[A]

God, how did he work that, though? How do you, like, sidle up and be like, hey, I mean, I realize it would take a while. Is it like a Dread Pirate Roberts type situation?

[B]

Yeah, and he. Yes. And he, like, I guess stroked his ego enough to be like, this will be such a good. Like, you built it anyway. So then he built an even better. But so just instead of being like, you hate science, he was like, I think you really love science. And then he built this incredible observatory, and that's where he observed all these planetary movements, which helped him write this thing called the 2C couple, which, like, talks about how a circle moves within a circle, looks like a line. I'm not quite sure. But that helped him pave the way for the real realization that the Earth is not the center of the world. And those observations, many scholars believe, made their way to a guy named Copernicus. Yeah. Okay, so this is a man who is, like, not afraid to look at the scary, like, just the hard to understand stars, things like that.

[A]

He's like, listen, Gigas Khan, you can't stop science.

[B]

You can't.

[A]

None of us can.

[B]

Yeah, okay, so. But what are we talking about today? Rainbows? So he also, you know, he's this, like, I'll think about anything. Stars, cool. Trigonometry, great. Math, Cool.

[A]

Colors.

[B]

Let me take on colors. And he basically starts, like, flirting with this idea that maybe there are actually infinite colors. And because infinity is this notoriously hard concept. Yeah, I don't know. I feel terror when I think about it, but so do a lot of people.

[A]

Yeah. You know what I've always thought about when I think about infinity is there's this quote from, I think, an Amy Tan book about one of her characters as a sixth grader, being terrified by the thought of infinity and also being equally terrified by the antithesis of it, which she envisions as, like, the universe coming to an end. And the image is something like a frayed tennis ball bouncing off a wall. Oh, yeah, right. There's something really dreadful about that in a great way. Here's what I think about a lot, and I might have mentioned it before on this show, but I really love 2001 A Space Odyssey. I really love it when movies are boring. Which, to be clear, I think it is trying to be on purpose. God bless it. I really love the dawn of man stuff. And I love the middle part, which I think I for one, did not really remember until I watched it more recently, which is like this man traveling, boringly on a commercial flight to the airport just outside the moon, the moon base, and then traveling to the moon. And the thing that he's dealing with is a secret project because they found this monolith on the moon, which is the same one that we saw in the first sequence. Wick shows up and then early man or Lucy figures out how to use weapons. And it's like this big moment, as you would imagine. And it's also interesting on the subject of innovation because I feel like as you're talking about this, there's this very sort of American history book way and also, I'm sure, very British way of teaching history that's like. And then one man out of all the men, one man who happened to be well bred and well educated and well connected thought of something and he thought by jinx. And that's how science works. As opposed to a lot of people in different places noticing things, often somewhat simultaneously, or innovation, sort of layering on innovation in a way where nothing is entirely one person's idea. I think most, if not all of the time. But this is how it works with the apes in the movie. Yeah. What I like about the boringness of it all is. Well, a. I just think that it's kind of nice to be forced to sit and look at things for that long. It's not that long, but it feels longer. And also that the middle part is. Then we're going to the moon to see this monolith where these guys in spacesuits stand in front of it and take cheesy pictures of this monolith they found. And then this high pitched ringing starts. And the premise of that, apparently, is that which I don't think you could necessarily figure out just by watching it, is like, what if the monolith is like a baby gate that's been placed there on the moon to tell the aliens or something. Somebody, aliens, God. Same diff, as far as the movie's concerned, that humans have figured it out enough to get to the moon and that we're ready for the next thing. And I guess, I don't know, I love that idea for some reason because it implies this sort of, like, I don't know, this idea of this almost if I keep calling it a baby gate. It's because I'm envisioning it as, like, alien mommy out there being, like, look at you. And, like, watching humanity grow.

[B]

Like, you think you've traveled so far, right?

[A]

And we've just gotten to the bottom of the stairs, and we're still at the bottom of the stairs. And there's also something so nice about that because Earth is really special, and it's where all our stuff is. And there aren't really other planets like it that we're ever gonna be able to get to before we destroy this one, you know? I don't know. I think it's just, like, we have. There's a sort of maybe spasming capitalist idea right now of, like, well, we'll just get a new, hotter, younger planet. It'll all be fine. And it's like, no, we're little babies. We barely understand the universe we're in. We're at the baby gate, and we need to really. I don't know. I just think it's so nice that everything is so much bigger than us. I'm at a moment in my life where humanity is behaving so badly that I'm like, it's so great that we know so little about the shape of things.

[B]

So in that way, does the concept of infinity, this greatness of space and time and even knowledge, is it comforting or what's your.

[A]

You know, what I think is that. I think infinity is scary because it so eludes our perceptions. And maybe at this moment, I'm like, it's so great. Great that there is so much truth and reality out there that eludes our ability to perceive it because our perceptions as humans, we're really having so much trouble.

[B]

Yeah. Like our.

[A]

Our.

[B]

Our intentions keep, like, returning us to the same messes.

[A]

If the universe were within our perceptions, it would be really tiny.

[B]

Yeah, totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

[A]

Or something. I don't know. It's just nice. It's. And it's. It's humbling and I don't know. Anyway, that's my digression. Everyone give 2001 a space odyssey a try. It's also, as my mom and my 9th grade English teacher would have, you know, a movie that can envision no role for women in the future, aside from being stewardesses. And that's also very true. Maybe some of. Maybe that ape was a girl. Probably not, but I can think.

[B]

So can I do one more digression? In the digression? In the digression?

[A]

Yeah. Yes, always.

[B]

Okay, so you Talked about the tennis ball thing and the.

[A]

This is what's called the golden mean. Yeah.

[B]

Okay. So the fear of the opposite infinity. Of infinity, which is like the teensiest speck of everything, maybe you could argue. Is that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that reminds me, I just wanted to read a poem by Marie Howe.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because she writes about that. It's often called, like, the speck is often called the Singularity, which is just like before we were this infinite thing. We were like everything pressed together. And I just think it's a really beautiful reframe of that terrifying opposite of. Okay, so I'm just gonna read it.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

It's not very long. Okay, so, Marie Ho. It's how it's called this. It's called the Singularity. Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity? We once were so compact, nobody needed a bed or food or money. Nobody hiding in the school bathroom or home alone, pulling open the drawer where the pills are kept. For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. Remember, there was no nature, no them. No tests to determine if the elephant grieves her calf or if the coral reef feels pain. Trashed oceans don't speak English or Farsi or French. Would that we could wake up to what we were when we were ocean and before that, when earth was sky and animal was energy and rock was liquid and stars were space and space was not at all nothing before we came to believe humans were so important, before this awful loneliness. Can molecules remember it? What once was before anything happened? Can our molecules remember? No, I. No we. No one. No what was. No verb, no noun yet. Only a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny dot brimming with is. Is. Is.

[A]

Is.

[B]

Is all. Everything.

[A]

Home. I love that so much.

[B]

Isn't that beautiful?

[A]

Yes, that's so beautiful.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. And I. I don't know. I. I feel that. And, like, I don't. What if. Because, like, there's all these things that kind of, as you're telling the rainbow history that started off as folklore, and then often, you know, and often, too, science is like, no, that's insane. Right, Right. But often as well, there's. But often as well, there's. There's, you know, some kind of finding where it's like, yeah, this thing that people always said. And often that, like, indigenous people always said and that then, you know, colonizers were like, no, that's silly. We're going to act in ways that will kill us and all of you, too. And that, of course, science then later supported as having, you know, as being Proven by things that we didn't have the ability to conceive or analyze.

[B]

Sarah, don't steal my ending.

[A]

Oh, I won't. I won't. I won't. I can't. I'm backing away. I recently touched an electrified fence without really thinking about it. It was very low voltage. It was around a bunny paddock. But I was looking right at a sign that said do not touch electric. And I was like, just gonna rest my hand. I would not have lasted long in the past.

[B]

What did you feel? Very little, but enough to jump back.

[A]

I was like, oh, shit. That's the feeling of. I'm not supposed to be touching that.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

But anyway. But my thought, hearing that poem and this is like me bearing my soul to you. That's what this show is about, is that what if in some far off scientific finding, there's evidence that love is not just a pro social impulse that we need to feel in order to raise young, etc. And protect ourselves from predators and each other. And also, I think us talking about coyotes. I've thought about that a lot and really come to the conclusion that as much as we like to visualize ourselves as being alone, we really thrive in packs. And I think a lot of our trouble has come from not knowing what group we belong to or having any group that we belong to.

[B]

Yeah. And craving a group. Missing it.

[A]

Yeah. And then creating groups out of, you know, hate or whatever. Or whatever we can find. And apparently, you know, mutual fear is like. Will put you down quite quickly. But then, you know, but then the goals that you have will be destructive and the sort of. Anyway, that's a whole conversation.

[B]

Wait, but what were you saying? Love. What if love wasn't about lions?

[A]

But what if love. What if love is like not just all those sort of practical things that of course make sense, but also this sort of like collective atomic memory of this time when we were all one thing, you know?

[B]

That's so beautiful.

[A]

Why the heck not?

[B]

It might be. It might be. And that feeling of reunification, like those little molecules glimmering and welcoming each other back. I like it. I like that.

[A]

I'm thinking a lot lately about just sort of like what it means to approach life as a universalist and to see all religions is like. Yeah. You know, because I think that the same way that we can't conceive of the universe, any kind of faith that isn't based on controlling other people, I think is you can see them all grasping at the same thing that might be getting too much into My personal spiritual journey. But we're talking about rainbows. I mean, it's inevitable, probably, that we get here.

[B]

No, but I think that, I mean, I personally have had in the last five years or so a massive, absolute change in what I think the job of a reporter is, which was going into it. I mean, I now, admittedly going into it, I didn't have any journalistic training, and I came into it through a weird side door of loving stories. So for a long time, I was like, the goal is to find a story, find an amazing story, Find a story, find the story, make it. And then, like, as I came to come up around incredible reporters and people who really kind of did go to J school and do think about it in other ways, I came to see how, like, story is often the enemy because, you know, stories about, like, cutting off details and disfiguring reality to make a nice narrative and that actually, like, I do think increasingly my job, and I'm not good at it, but what I'm at least trying to do now is to, like, capture more and more complexity and then just, like, present that in a digestible way. So obviously there's. But I do think. And that's why I like to go back to, you know, just, like, what have religion said, what have traditions said. Like, science doesn't have a monopoly on truth. To really do good science, let's look at all kinds of different things. And so I do think, you know, people always talk about braiding indigenous wisdom, and I think that's just such a profoundly amazing way to, like, get a deeper and more accurate understanding of nature and science. So I think your UU church dreams, your universalist vibe is. Is all. It's like. It's not just good for spirituality, but I think it's very good for science. Like, very, very good.

[A]

Ooh, yeah, Nice.

[B]

Okay, but. So. Okay, but. So you're. But the concept of infinity is where we kind of left off. So this idea of, like, a lot of people, especially before we even had it well termed linguistically and mathematically, like, it was this idea that was. That was frightening. Aristotle, I guess, apparently, absolutely rejected the idea of an actual infinity. He believed you could count forever. He was like, okay, maybe there are infinite numbers, but I think the universe is finite. So he was a strict, as I understand, a strict finatist. And there's just this idea of thinking about infinity has really broken a lot of people. And there's a very famous case of this scientist, George Cantor. He was obsessed with a certain kind of. Infinities this idea of infinite infinities. And he basically glimpsed that truth he published on it. But it really broke him. He went mad.

[A]

This is like before acid had been synthesized and he had to just do it yourself. Over years of study.

[B]

Yeah, you just had to think about. And it's sort of apocryphal that he took his life. It looks like he probably died of a heart attack, but in a silent well.

[A]

And also, there's so many other things to, you know, drive a person beyond the point of no return if there's, you know, no real mental health availability. But infinity doesn't help.

[B]

It doesn't. And the George Cantor thing, like, a while, I actually couldn't find these notes. But a while back, I looked into him and I did. I was like. I had watched this documentary called. It was a BBC documentary called Dangerous Knowledge. And it was about, like, knowledge that drove scientists mad.

[A]

So many people watched that thinking it would be about. About sex somehow. And then it was a math documentary.

[B]

Yeah, no, not at all. And that's that one. That documentary kind of makes it a little bit too much look like it was a suicide. And I think that was a misstep. But then I looked into the stuff, and it's like he was trying. He was writing these letters, like, trying to. He's like, I want to stop thinking about this. It is, but I can't. And so I think there was, like, the heart attack may have done him in, but he really ended up in an asylum. And thinking about infinity was really a torment, but like an addiction. So, anyway, my point is, thinking about infinity is hard. Aristotle didn't want to do it. George Cantor went mad. But our guy back, Nasir Al Din Al Tusi, was just like, bring it on. I want to think about it.

[A]

Well, he's probably riding around on a Mongolian pony all day. You know, you start thinking about infinity as he got bounced around on there.

[B]

You do, and you look at the stars. So he was, I think, really ahead of his time. Not only did he, like, predict things, the Copernican shift or pave the way for that idea, he also was like, I think that there are. In colors, there are infinite pathways of mixing them. And he just was more into this idea of sort of there might be infinite colors in the rainbow, but the idea, it didn't really take off. It didn't get traction. Aristotle, with this idea of this, a more kind of rigid idea about light and rainbows took hold for a long way. But he was. I don't know I just want to give him his due because he was kind of ahead of his time. So. So, okay, so then we jump ahead. We're gonna get there. We're coming to the end of our scientific story. Don't worry.

[A]

Look, I'll go on whatever. I'll go on like an Indiana Jones itinerary of scientific story with you. Don't worry about it.

[B]

Great. All right, well, pull out your rope, because we are swinging to 1665, England. A plague sweeps the land, and everyone kind of had to go into lockdown. I don't know if you remember anything about that.

[A]

You know, we had. We had cable and stuff, and it was different that. They didn't.

[B]

They did not.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so a young. A young man named Isaac Newton, not yet a sir.

[A]

I knew Newton was gonna turn up. Hello, Here he comes. Here he comes walking down the street Just the busiest virgin that she ever did need. Hey, it's Isaac Newton. An apple didn't fall on his head. Here comes Isaac Newton. Don't try and jump in his bed. I'm sorry to make so many jokes about him being a virgin. I just don't know that much about his life.

[B]

I'm. I'm feeling like he probably was at this time. He's a young man. He. He's crashing for lockdown. He goes home, as as many a millennial did, to live with his parents.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In the English countryside.

[A]

It's hard to picture him without a wig.

[B]

It is hard. I wonder if.

[A]

Because we've only seen him in a big curly wig.

[B]

Isaac Newton. What did he look like?

[A]

He was very attractive, from what I remember of depictions of him.

[B]

Quite the brow.

[A]

I wonder if the milkmaids were all over Isaac Newton. And he was like, let go of me.

[B]

He kind of looks like, you know, more like. Kind of like Kate Winslet as a young. As a young. As a young. Anyway, but so he. Yeah, okay, so he's just, like, in the English countryside. No. Yeah. No cable, no Tiger King for him to watch. So he just is like. I don't know. I picture him, like, tinkling the harpsichord and playing backgammon. And one day he is just fumbling around with a prism.

[A]

I would imagine so.

[B]

Now, did you byop.

[A]

I did get a prism. And wait, I think not to name names, because I didn't see which cat might have done this, but I think Verner probably knocked it off the table. So wait, let me look real quick, class. Okay, here it is. This is like a classic triangular prism.

[B]

Great. Yeah. Now, can you. I don't know if you have a window in your room.

[A]

Yeah, I'm right in front of. I'm right in front of window. It is a very cloudy day, though.

[B]

Okay. So we might not get it, but

[A]

see if you can just.

[B]

Just angle it for a second and see if you get any action.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

Or just describe what you see.

[A]

Yeah, well, I get. I'm not able to, like, bounce light through it right now, but if I just sort of, like, look into it, I can just sort of see little reflections of details of my surroundings with little rainbows all over them.

[B]

Oh, great. Really?

[A]

You know what I mean?

[B]

Good.

[A]

Okay. Well, not, like, rainbows all over them, but like, this sort of. This cast of, like, rainbow color. Like, I'm looking into it, and I can see the tree that's outside my window through it, and there's, like, rainbow colors in the sky that I can see through the leaves. That's great.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

You know, faintly. Yeah, it's very cool. And I don't know if that's sort of, you know, historically accurate, but that's.

[B]

Okay. Well, what. When you say rainbow colors, what. What colors? If you had to. If you had to, like, name them, what do you see?

[A]

Well, I had a little practice in the area, and I would say descending from top to bottom, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. You know, kind of subtly. Yeah.

[B]

Some Roy G. Bivbing around. Okay, got it. Okay.

[A]

Didn't we add or remove one or something, though?

[B]

You have been. You are hallucinating. You have been sold alive, young Sarah Marshall. Okay, but we'll get to that. So, okay, but. But okay, so, yeah, myth busted. Myth about to be busted. But, okay, so Isaac Newton, he was

[A]

a very violent thing.

[B]

Yeah. He was doing that, and he saw those colors, and then he eventually twisted it in such a way, and it was a bright enough direct sunlight day that he also got those famous. Like, just little rainbows on the wall, you know, like a little rainbow y.

[A]

Yeah, I haven't been able to do that with this one, but it was probably, you know, sunnier at the time.

[B]

So. Okay, so many. By the time Isaac Newton has done this, many people have seen, you know, rainbows come out of prisms or chunks of glass. And the theory again of why went back to Aristotle, this idea that the prism, like the mist, was tinting, changing, muddying. What was your word?

[A]

Ooh, adulterating. Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Adulterating, Dirtying. Pure sunlight. And so that the rainbows on the wall, they were evidence of change. They were ev. Impurities of the Light being changed or disguised. And he thought, okay, well, if that's true, then if I take a second prism and I pass the rainbow parts through a second prism, you'll get even more tinted light. So maybe you'll get different colors or darker colors. I'm not sure what exactly, but it will change it even more.

[A]

Why does he have prisms? Do we know? What are they for? As, like, a household item, or is it a school thing?

[B]

Oh, that's a great question. I don't know. I have no idea.

[A]

That's interesting. All right, we'll return to that in a future show.

[B]

The listener can write in and tell us. So he takes a second one, and again, if Aristotle's right, it should get tinted even more. But then what happens? Any guesses?

[A]

Ooh. Oh, my God. I don't know. Does it make a. Does it cancel it out?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. It goes back inside. The rainbow disappears.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

And so what he.

[A]

The first man in 1900 years to put two prisms next to each other.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Although I guess that glass making is a relatively recent thing anyway. Yeah.

[B]

So basically, what he realized is, look, when I see the colors of the rainbow, this is not evidence of impurities. This is evidence of the light's ingredients. These are the colors that make up a beam array of what appears to be pure white sunlight, but for some reason, isn't. Like, when those all smoothie together, they make white light.

[A]

Yeah. God, that's cool.

[B]

Yeah, it was a really great.

[A]

And that's like. And that is a wild leap to make, too.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

And the way that I've heard. He has not yet figured out that it's waves, but just to jump ahead for a second, like, the way that I've heard it, it described, is that, like, what a prism does or what a little raindrop does up in the sky, which is how you get rainbows. Is that, like, the lights coming down, it has all these different colors inside. Red is kind of these slower waves. Violet are these faster waves, Medium greens and stuff. Yellows. And they're all kind of like a shopping cart is like the ray of light is like a shopping cart full of colors. And when that shopping cart. That's so cute hits a corner, like, hits a prism, hits a curtain. All the ingredients just kind of the oranges and the red apple, you know, whatever they all toss out, they just, like, wow. They break out. Because the different speeds, like, spill out at slightly different angles.

[A]

That's wild that we can do that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, who would think that you could use A piece of glass and disrupt a light wave to that extent

[B]

and then put it back. To put it back in.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And so he.

[A]

Man.

[B]

So he. This, like, will eventually. I mean, this will pave the way for massive breakthroughs in technology, development of lasers, fiber optics, even telescopes will get. All kinds of things will get better. But there was one last thing he needed to do, which was count the colors in the rainbow, which you already. You did for us. And so what he. Eventually, he kind of at first was like maybe five. No, no, I think it's seven. And that's how we get Roy G. Biv. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Okay. But the thing, the little, like, my favorite part of this is like, he didn't get there because he was like, closely squinting through a magnifying glass or using rulers. He just was like, seven's a really pretty number because that is so him. It's so classic Newton vibes. So he. Because there's how many notes in a traditional Western classical sketch. Oh, do re, mi, fa, so la ti, do.

[A]

Is that seven?

[B]

Seven. And at the time, there were seven known planets, and there were seven known metals. Gold, silver, mercury, copper, iron, tin, lead. Now there's over 90. But in Newton's day, there were how many days in a week?

[A]

Seven. Oh, my God.

[B]

How many continents were, like, called at that time? Seven.

[A]

So it just felt seven. How many seas at the time? Seven. Seven.

[B]

Yeah. And so it was like this science. It was like this nature, this mystically pure number. Like, he, he.

[A]

It just.

[B]

There was just this idea that there were like these accordances, like things move in sevens. And so he was basically like, musical scale seven. Color seven. That feels good. That feels.

[A]

It's gotta be seven.

[B]

It's gotta be seven. And that thing, like, was just pressed into textbook. I mean, like, I was taught Roy J. Fin for sure.

[A]

Oh, yeah. I don't know if I was taught it in school, but it was like my parents taught it to me. It's like basic human knowledge.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And that. It just is. Those are the seven colors that make up the rainbow, that make up light. Case closed. Case not closed.

[A]

Oh, my God. We got to reopen the case.

[B]

So we did a. We did a Terrestrials about. For kids about these concepts. They weren't. Didn't go into all this stuff, but we did. Alan, my amazing collaborator and friend and musical genius, made this little thing about Roy G. Biv. Okay, so I'm just going to play you this. Okay. So this is the moment of discovery, and this is like the industrial lie getting printed into our minds. Infinite colors. Infinite colors Lava, Infinite colors. Ochre, tiger, copper, flower. Infinite colors Dandelion, sun, Etc. Infinite colors. Mint, moss, seafoam, pistachio. Infinite colors. Glacier, sapphire, sky. Infinite colors Twilight, iris, periwinkle, amethyst. Infinite colors. Mauve, midnight gray, plum, lavender, Invisible colors Ultraviolet, X ray, gamma, gamma ray, infrared, microwave, Radio wave, radio wave, radio wave, radio wave, Radio wave, radio wave, radio wave, radio wave, radio wave, radio wave. The point is, it got, like. It was this handy way to remember colors in the rainbow that was maybe so handy. It just, like, got.

[A]

Sometimes things are too handy.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Yes.

[A]

Because the truth is sometimes less catchy. Also, I was never totally clear on the difference between indigo and violet, if I'm being honest here.

[B]

Same. I think that's a big. I think indigo is like a bit of a Emperor's New Clothes. Like, is that a thing?

[A]

But.

[B]

But. So. So this goes on, and it's kind of this idea that, like, light has been. We have cracked the rainbow. We've literally cracked it open, seen its insides. It's seven colors. Cool. But then there were, like, a lot of painters and poets and, like, stoners all over the world who weren't fully convinced that this was accurate. So Keats very famously wrote this poem, like, being, like, how dare. Like, like, he basically accused Newton of having killed the magic of the rainbow.

[A]

Oh.

[B]

And there's a line about how he, like, dared to, quote, unweave a rainbow by, like, reducing it into these cold colors. And then Goethe was, like, had all these kind of poetic theories about, like, well, when I feel purpley, the purple is different than the purple. I see, like, no colors come from feelings. And then Turner the storm painting guy, like, painted all these rainbows with all these tons of colors as kind of like a fu. And just people being like, how do we know my blue is your blue? And are we so sure, like, concrete, like, colors are concrete? And, like, really, how is my blue your blue?

[A]

These are worthwhile questions for sure.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the only way we can determine is by describing our blues to each

[B]

other, probably a hundred percent. And so then along comes another bro, a big bro of 10 kids in a British family. He's a med student named Thomas Young, another Brit, and he's like, you know, doing your classic. He's dissecting the eyeball of an ox, as you do, and he's wondering about, like, how eyes focus and process light through science.

[A]

Or if you're Salvador Dali. Either one.

[B]

Yeah, exactly.

[A]

Or no. Boone. Well, who did the eyeball slicing maybe, I don't know. Ooh, one of those dudes.

[B]

One of those dudes. Yeah. But wondering, like, what's the connection between. Of course, a painter would wonder that. What is the connection between the colors out there and what I perceive? And this eye seems to be the medium, you know, through which the interface through which all those things happen.

[A]

It was both of them. They both did the eyeball movie. Good talk.

[B]

And so. So Thomas Young eventually devises an absolutely ingenious experiment that we are not going to go into because that is too complicated. It's the double slit experiment, which is a whole quantum mechanics realizing that light is both a particle and a wave, and it's like a total universe changer, but along.

[A]

Yeah, come back and explain that one to me on another show because I would like to hear more about how light works and stuff.

[B]

Yeah, I would too, but you might need somebody else because I have done like a whole piece about quantum mechanics and I still don't understand it. But light is not just part that. What you need to know is light behaves like a particle and like a wave, like an ocean wave, like a sound wave, like a. Wow. Wow. And that's the big insight there is that rainbows, that the. That the colors within a beam of light coming from the sun are oscillating at all these different waves. And the way that our eyes process those waves and send information to the brain is that we, like, perceive those. Those wavelengths as different colors. And so the low, long, slow waves we tend to see as red. The middle kind of medium waves we see as greens, and the really fast ones we see as violet. But also on every rainbow on either side is light we cannot see. Ultraviolet, infrared, microwaves, things like that. That's just like. And where we divide it into colors, the waves are just like the ocean. They're just like some big ones, some medium ones. Where we divide it depends on the person, where we draw the line. And so the poets, the painters, Nasir Al Dun, Al Tusi, our guy, this idea that, like, the lines are subjective, like, there aren't seven concrete colors. There are really. There are really infinite colors in the rainbow.

[A]

God damn.

[B]

And so sort of like what colors we see where we divide the lines, which ones appear strong, which ones we happen to see maybe because of associations or moods or like the little conclusion there is that, you know, the. All those long ago traditions were right that like the rainbow science, it is a bridge. It's out there and it's in here. It's Like a bridge between worlds. It's a bridge between an inside and outside kind of being. Like a thing, which I think is why they. They are so, like, slippery and wonderful.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So that's the. That's the story of the rainbow.

[A]

Ah, Lulu. That was so good.

[B]

And once we figured it out that the rainbow, that the colors of light are. That are waves and are these kind of infinite colors, then we could, like, discover new elements based on what frequency of waves they were emitting or refracting. So like helium, thallium, gallium, cesium. And we could discover new things in space because we figured out stars emitted radio waves that we couldn't see. We could invent like the radio techno, passing information over radio waves, technologies like lasik. So, like, once we figured out that it's just been, you know, it's like so much that we can do.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And I think in a real way, like, you know, this rainbow again that we see is so frivolous was like the site of serious scientific contention that finally, like, rumbled and built to insight that. That truly, like, really, really freaking transformed our world just by people wondering what that pretty thing was in the sky.

[A]

And this phenomenon that we kept being confronted with and trying to understand and that drove us toward all these other realizations.

[B]

Maybe. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. That's so cool.

[B]

Yeah. So that's my rainbow. Okay, I have to End. End. I have a choose your own adventure of three options.

[A]

Okay. Oh, my gosh. Okay.

[B]

Okay. Option one is like, so this sat. I don't know if you are experiencing this, but in. I got into radio because I hate, like, visual judgments. I think it's a sacred thing to just be voices. But increasingly they're like, make videos, post Instagram reels, and do things.

[A]

I will never find it necessary for people to see my face while I'm saying something, for them to listen to me say something, you know?

[B]

Okay. But I've been like, fighting, fighting, fighting that. But then I finally, on this piece, I gave in to like, a music video about the concept of infinite color. So I could show you that it's a minute long.

[A]

Well, that's a really good reason to give into something. Yeah.

[B]

I was like, you can't beat them. Let's ruin. Really join them. So there's that. That's door number one. Door number two is we could do a little pride coda just about the rainbow becoming the. On the flag, the rainbow being the. The pride. The gay pride flag, the queer pride flag. Or we could do a butterfly coda of just that.

[A]

Oh, boy.

[B]

Butterflies are shady as hell.

[A]

All right, well, I want to have a link to the Infinite Color video, and I think we have to end on the pride coda. And then if we have time, I want just one little, tiny butterfly fact on top, please. Perhaps.

[B]

Okay, perfect.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Okay. Okay. So the. The pride coda is like, how did this. How did this rainbow become a part of the Queer Pride flag? Become the Queer Pride flag? So there have been, you know, different emblems of Queer pride throughout the era. There was, you know, a time where. Where the pink triangle, which was on the Nazi uniform, was reclaimed as, like, a Gay pride thing. There was, I guess, Oscar Wilde had a whole green carnation situation. There were other things. But in 1978, we're in San Francisco, and Harvey Milk asks his friend Gilbert Baker, a gay activist and also someone who's very big into tailoring seamstressing. What is a male seamstress?

[A]

A seam seamster, I guess a seamster. And then. And a female teamster is a teamstress.

[B]

So there's going to be a big Gay Pride parade. It was called, like, the Gay Freedom Day Parade. And he was like, gilbert, you love fabrics. You're always making. You're always sewing things for our drag queen friends. Like, can you just make some kind of fun flag for a banner, basically for the parade? And I guess he'd made banners for Harvey Milk before that were just like, you know, whatever, Gay rights now, justice, like, that kind of thing. And he was like, but can you make us, like, a thing? And so Gilbert Baker worked with this woman who would call herself the tie dye queen, Lyn Sogerblom, who was very good at, like, colors and fabrics. And they came up with the idea of, well, let's use a rainbow. And the reason why was, yes, it's beautiful. And also it represents the diversity of sexuality and genders in the queer experience, but mainly the fact that it was found in nature because queerness is natural. And this idea that it's like, this thing that encompasses the beauty, the celebration, and the diversity and naturalness of queerness. And so each color had its. Originally it had eight colors. It now has six. But it also used to have, like, this. This great pinky magenta pink and a very cool turquoise, which they then took out because of, like, it was hard to reproduce those with dyes or something. But each color had its own sim. Like, its own symbolic thing for, like, something it expressed about the queer experience. So pink was, like, for hot sex or just sex, but, you know, hot sex. Indigo was about serenity. And they each. I can do all the colors if you want or not, but they each had a different thing.

[A]

That's beautiful.

[B]

Yeah. And so with Lynn Sogerblom, they, like, he felt very strong that he wanted all the dyes to be natural, organic dyes. And so they did this, like, extensive dyeing practice, and they had something like 30 people working on those first few flags, and they stitched them all together. And Gilbert Baker was like, oh, I don't want to make this in my house. I want to go make it in. In this queer community center. Cause it's like the day it will be born. And he didn't know it was gonna catch on. There were other flags, other things, but it caught on and I think really took on big power because it was only a few months later that Harvey Milk was assassinated, and he had been the one to request, let's have these flags. Let's have a parade. So then it just. It really took off. And then, you know, and I think some people are like, eh, rainbow's tacky. I don't care. But. And then it's just continues to evolve. In 2017 in Philly, they added for a Queer Pride parade there, they added the black and brown stripes for LGBTQ people of color who are sometimes left out of the experience. And then a year later, it became the Progress Pride flag, which you've probably seen, which has that arrow, which also has white, blue, pink, and black and brown stripes, also for trans individuals, communities of color. And I'm sure it will continue to evolve. And it's still like, you know, again, we think of rainbows as, like, cheesy and happy, but it is this. Apparently, Gilbert Baker, when he made it, he had been noticing a couple years before, had been the American Bicentennial. It had been 1976, and so there were American flags everywhere. And he had been really thinking about flags and how they express, like, a peoplehood and a power. And I was just. I don't know if you saw this news, but a year ago, there was a ordinance that came down from the federal government to paint over all rainbow roads and sidewalks. And the big rainbow road outside the Pulse nightclub, which had been this memorial, got in the middle of the night, got painted over black. And I feel like it's just this. It's still a symbol. Like, the flag is evolving, and I'm sure it'll continue to evolve. And all kinds of people. I've heard people be like, oh, we need to redesign the rainbow flag. It's ugly or Whatever. But I think it's like, I don't know, just the power, the cruelty of that act, and then the sort of resistance of people kind of guerrilla. Painting. The rainbow back in Orlando is a beautiful thing. And. Yeah, that's the rainbow.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And it is. I mean. And of course, I think for a lot of people in maybe more Biden administration years, there was this feeling of like, yes, it's so great that we're painting pride flags on things in a way to avoid making real infrastructural change. But then I think when those got taken away.

[B]

Yeah, right. The rainbow washing.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. It was like, wait, no, right. Don't stop doing that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Let's not walk it back even farther. That was my feeling.

[B]

I would take rainbow washing over, rainbow blackening out.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Painting over.

[A]

And I. And I feel like kind of a. I don't know, a common. And I. And, you know, I don't. This coming from many different motives, but I feel like people have also complained, like, oh, if you put, like, so much on the flag, that at a certain point, like, isn't it just sort of. I don't know, this kind of gripe that I feel like I've seen of, like, at what point is there too much inclusivity? I don't think that people are really saying that out loud, but sort of, I don't know, acting as if there's a little bit of absurdity to it. And I think what you're saying is making me realize that that's exactly the point is to, like, have a flag that is trying to have so much stuff on it and an acronym that. That, you know, as. I don't know, again, like, I feel like people have been making this joke since the 90s. The, like, LGBTQ. Too many letters.

[B]

Right.

[A]

It's like. But that's the point, is that it's too many letters.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is that there's too many letters to say. And that's a good thing to be attempting to say too many letters. You know, and that, like, a lot

[B]

of the resistance to the change in the flag is like. But it wasn't that way. It's just change.

[A]

Change.

[B]

We don't like change.

[A]

Right. We keep finding more colors.

[B]

I even had a little of that reaction. I was like, oh, the rainbow. It was so simple. It was so. But then, like, if you.

[A]

Well, yeah, because everybody gets attached to things they remember, and that's okay. But. Yeah.

[B]

But then if you really look at it, it's just like, I do like how it's like this arrow. It gives it a little arrowhead. It gives it some like. Like, yes, the beauty of nature, but also like, we gotta fight.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And the work is not done.

[A]

Yeah. And I guess it's like, if your symbols are getting busier, then that means that you're trying to embrace more, you know, and that's to. I don't know. To. I think that the American left is a complicated thing to be a part of because there's a lot of young people coming from pretty fundamentalist backgrounds who have yet to get out of the mindset of purity and punishment. And you can see. And Portland is famously a place where, if you want to have one of the worst experiences of your life, live with a community organizer is the joke. And I think there's a lot of truth to it. And there's a lot of, like, lefty communities that I have lived in and experienced the gossip of. And yet I would always pretty much choose them over any alternative because I think that the kind of. There's a lot of toxicity that emerges inevitably just in human relationships between people who have been through a lot. And yet if you have sort of a basic social goal of ultimately coming back to wanting to be more expansive and wanting to embrace more and wanting to challenge yourself and wanting to build community rather than find ways to police it, and who gets to have one, then. I don't know. I think it's okay for people especially who have changed their minds about a lot of things in life, which is difficult work to do, to struggle with how to live those values. It's inevitable that people are going to struggle with that. And yet it's better to struggle to live good values than to just embrace horrible ones. No one's ever gonna convince me of that. I have been a proud resident of Portland, Madison, and West Philly. All right. I'm irretrievable.

[B]

Yeah. No, totally. Yeah. And, like, I do think. But I do think inclusivity, which was the original rainbow and which we have now learned, is inherent in the rainbow. Infinite ways, infinite colors. And is the move in the progress Pride flag, like it or not aesthetically like it, is just a. About showing, making sure all of the colors are shown and represented. So maybe really what the flag needs, if we really were to respect the rainbow, maybe it just needs to be a sequence and it's reflecting all the infinite colors of the light. Qed.

[A]

Beautiful. Lulu, you're so great. I love you.

[B]

I love you. You're so great. Thank you.

[A]

What are you up to? And where can People find you and. And what kind of stuff are you making for the folks?

[B]

Well, definitely come check out Terrestrials, which is the podcast I make for kids and families. But you don't have to be a kid or have a kid to listen, as long as you don't mind me occasionally singing. And it's all about nature. We did do a rainbows episode that's called the Bridge. But another one the queers might like is one we just put out called the Forest Fairy that stars a certain Indigo girl named Amy Ray talking about a fair aphids. Very cool. That one's really cool.

[A]

She.

[B]

She was incredible. And it leads us to, like, all the kind of secret harmony. It leads us to something about. It leads us to the fact that plants are talking, which is incredible. And yeah, so I do that podcast about nature, and then I also am on Radiolab where we are doing science stories all the time. And I'm working slowly chugging away at a second adult book that's all about Biomimic.

[A]

That's so exciting.

[B]

Which may be finished someday or may

[A]

not, but either way, I don't know. I think that the work you do reminds me and so many people so often just kind of like what kind of a world we're living in in the best way possible, you know? Oh, and I asked you for a little butterfly fact. May I have one?

[B]

Oh, yes. Okay, let me decide.

[A]

Or I take an aphid fact as well, actually, now that those have come up.

[B]

Aphids are so cool. Oh, okay. I'll give you. Okay, I'll give you an aphid fact. That is great. So you know how we're often taught that you need a male and a female to have a baby?

[A]

They're trying to legislate that one, I think. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. Aphids can. Can reproduce without males. They can make all female societies where they reproduce, and that is called parthenogenesis, where the females, in a pinch or just like for most of the year, they. They can just reproduce without males. They basically shoot out clones of themselves and become these big, wonderful communities of daughters and sisters and cousins and grandmas and hang out. And some of them dance. The ones we're talking about, woolly aphids, are also called boogie woogie aphids. And they dance. And I just think what I love about that is nature. What you were saying with infinity, it's so much wilder than we think. It's like, yeah, in many species, you do need a male or female, but you don't to have. Have to. And we've seen that in the California Condor and we've seen it in certain snakes. Like, in a pinch, there is a pathway to create new life. Like, that is. I think more people need to be talking about parthenogenesis. Like, the fact that that can happen. Yeah, that alone is amazing. Like, the pathway is there evolutionarily. Yes. In bugs. Yes. Even invertebrates. In, in, in vertebrates, in birds and in reptiles. And so I just think, like, that is so wild and like, I just. Why is everyone not just, like, walking around every morning? Like, parthenogenesis can happen. So that's your aphid fact.

[A]

I mean, I know some people who are doing parthenogenesis, you just have to pay a doctor a bunch of money to give you some hormones and harvest your eggs and stuff. But it's, you know, it's, it's so, it's. We're getting there. And I'm just, I'm just so excited for everything that you're doing.

[B]

Doing.

[A]

And I love being on this planet with you. Thank you.

[B]

I love being on this planet with you. Thank you. I can't wait to hear whatever is coming from here next. That isn't me.

[A]

Okay, bye.

[B]

Bye, Sarah. Bye.

[A]

And that was our episode. The original music you heard in this episode was brought you to to you by Magpie Cinema Club featuring Brendan Liu. We have a new bonus episode coming soon, also on Patreon and Apple plus, where Chelsea Weber Smith and I are going to read your doll mail emails you sent us about the things you've made dolls out of. To be clear, not mail from dolls. Although I cannot be certain that any of those emails were not sent by dolls, now that I think about it. Thank you to the people who help make this show. Miranda Ziggler is our producer and editor. Nicole Ortiz is our administrative assistant. Thank you to our amazing guest, Lulu Miller. Please check out all of her work wherever you can find it, and especially on terrestrials. You can find her website and more information about her books in the show notes. And most of all, all. Thank you for listening. We'll see you in two weeks.

[B]

Sam.