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the end of the double rainbow?

 
 
Nancy88
 
Reply Sun 4 Mar, 2012 07:11 am
I read across a passage from Denise Chong's famous novel The Concubine's childern.

Still, Chan sam could admit to a tinge of regret that he was leaving without having found the end of the double rainbow in Gold Mountain.

What does the phrase "find the end the of the double rainbow"?
Many thanks!
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tsarstepan
 
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Reply Sun 4 Mar, 2012 09:13 am
@Nancy88,
It's not a meant to be some kind of metaphor or an idiom. A double rainbow is what it seems to be. Two rainbows in the sky: one above the other.
Quote:
Although most people will not notice it because they are not actively looking for it, a dim secondary rainbow is often present outside the primary bow. Secondary rainbows are caused by a double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops, and appear at an angle of 50–53°. As a result of the second reflection, the colours of a secondary rainbow are inverted compared to the primary bow, with blue on the outside and red on the inside. The secondary rainbow is fainter than the primary because more light escapes from two reflections compared to one and because the rainbow itself is spread over a greater area of the sky. The dark area of unlit sky lying between the primary and secondary bows is called Alexander's band, after Alexander of Aphrodisias who first described it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow#Multiple_rainbows
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contrex
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Reply Sun 4 Mar, 2012 10:28 am
In old legends it was supposed that, if one could find the place on the ground where a rainbow came to an end, there would be a pot of gold. Given that a rainbow is an optical phenomenon and recedes and ultimately vanishes when anyone tries to approach it, it should be clear what the metaphor is pointing towards.
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