In our continuing series of blog posts that we hope fosters discussion on a few of our more controversial quizzes, we're tackling a deceptively simple quiz that has generated a lot of discussion: The Colors of the Rainbow.
The point of issue is that many people learned the acronym Roy G. Biv (or the more dramatic Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain) to describe the color spectrum. As you may notice, these include the first letters of seven colors. This group of colors is exactly how Isaac Newton first described them. Newton wanted to align the color wheel with musical notes, the known solar system (which is edging closer back to 7 as the years go on) and the days of the week. While this is a pretty great idea for fans of the number seven, it's not a terribly accurate one, as modern research has proven the color indigo is almost impossible to distinguish from either blue or purple.
In our quiz, we accept either indigo or blue for one of the answers as well as both purple and violet for another, so we're hoping to at least give you credit if your description of the color is accurate. In the future just remember the Sporcle mnemonic device: Richard of York Grew Bulbous Vegetables, and things will work out just fine.
All that being said, we're open to suggestions here, if you want a Roy G. Biv quiz to relive your elementary school days, shoot us a comment and let us know why.
