Thoreau’s Rainbow

Abstract

In his famous book Walden, or Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau writes about the experience of walking through a rainbow. Since Thoreau is often praised for the accuracy of his observations of natural phenomena, what are we to make of this plainly unscientific description of a rainbow? A rainbow is a phenomenon that is always about 138 degrees (180 degrees – 42 degrees) away from the sun, and the impossibility of ever reaching it is enshrined in such stories as the Gold at the End of the Rainbow. Was he mistaken, or was he describing an emotional reaction to a natural wonder? And how critical should we be of him?