<P> Visible wavelengths pass through the "optical window", the region of the electromagnetic spectrum that allows wavelengths to pass largely unattenuated through the Earth's atmosphere . An example of this phenomenon is that clean air scatters blue light more than red wavelengths, and so the midday sky appears blue . The optical window is also referred to as the "visible window" because it overlaps the human visible response spectrum . The near infrared (NIR) window lies just out of the human vision, as well as the Medium Wavelength IR (MWIR) window, and the Long Wavelength or Far Infrared (LWIR or FIR) window, although other animals may experience them . </P> <P> In the 13th century, Roger Bacon theorized that rainbows were produced by a similar process to the passage of light through glass or crystal . </P> <P> In the 17th century, Isaac Newton discovered that prisms could disassemble and reassemble white light, and described the phenomenon in his book Opticks . He was the first to use the word spectrum (Latin for "appearance" or "apparition") in this sense in print in 1671 in describing his experiments in optics . Newton observed that, when a narrow beam of sunlight strikes the face of a glass prism at an angle, some is reflected and some of the beam passes into and through the glass, emerging as different - colored bands . Newton hypothesized light to be made up of "corpuscles" (particles) of different colors, with the different colors of light moving at different speeds in transparent matter, red light moving more quickly than violet in glass . The result is that red light is bent (refracted) less sharply than violet as it passes through the prism, creating a spectrum of colors . </P> <P> Newton divided the spectrum into seven named colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet . He chose seven colors out of a belief, derived from the ancient Greek sophists, of there being a connection between the colors, the musical notes, the known objects in the solar system, and the days of the week . The human eye is relatively insensitive to indigo's frequencies, and some people who have otherwise - good vision cannot distinguish indigo from blue and violet . For this reason, some later commentators, including Isaac Asimov, have suggested that indigo should not be regarded as a color in its own right but merely as a shade of blue or violet . However, the evidence indicates that what Newton meant by "indigo" and "blue" does not correspond to the modern meanings of those color words . Comparing Newton's observation of prismatic colors to a color image of the visible light spectrum shows that "indigo" corresponds to what is today called blue, whereas "blue" corresponds to cyan . </P>

What kind of light can we not see