How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap: Odd Excursions into Optics

by Stephen R. Wilk

Overview

How the Ray Gun Got Its Zap is a collection of essays that discusses odd and unusual topics in optics. Though optics is a fairly specialized branch of physics, this book extracts from the discipline topics that are particularly interesting, mysterious, culturally relevant, or accessible. The essays all first appeared, in abbreviated form, in Optics and Photonics News and in The Spectrograph; the author has updated and expanded upon each of them for this book. The book is divided into three thematic sections: History, Weird Science, and Pop Culture. Chapters will discuss surprising uses of optics in classics and early astronomy; explain why we think of the sun as yellow when it is actually white; present how the laser is used in popular film; and profile the eccentric scientists who contributed to optics. The essays are short and entertaining, and can be read in any order. The book should appeal to general audiences interested in optics or physics more generally, as well as members of the scientific community who are curious about optics phenomena.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199948017
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	10/07/2013
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Stephen Wilk is a contributing editor for the Optical Society of America and the author of Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon (OUP; 2000). He holds a Ph.D. in Physics and has worked on Laser Propulsion and High Energy Lasers at Textron and MIT's Lincoln Labs, and has designed and built optical apparatus at Optikos Corporation, Cognex, and AOtec. He was previously a visiting professor at Tufts and a visiting scientist at MIT.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Introduction

I. History
1.) Ancient Optics - Magnification Without Lenses
2.) The Solar Weapon of Archimedes
3.) Claudius Ptolemy's Law of Refraction
4.) Antonio de Ulloa's Mystery
5.) The Miracle of St. Gascoigne
6.) Rays of the Sun
7.) Roy G. Biv
8.) George Christoph Lichtenberg
9.) Hopkinson's Silk Handkerchief
10.) First Light - Thomas Melville and the Beginnings of Spectroscopy
11.) Mediocrity and Illumination
12.) Even If You Can't Draw a Straight Line
13.) A Sea Change
14.) Thomas Pearsall and the Ultraviolet
15.) If at First You Don't Succeed
16.) More than a Burner
17.) Apply Light Pressure
18.) Sound Movies, the World's Fair, and Stellar Spectroscopy
19.) Déjà vu
20.) The Magic Lantern of Omar Khayyam

II. Weird Science
21.) The Yellow Sun Paradox
22.) Once in a Blue Moon
23.) Chromatic Dispersions
24.) The Eye in the Spiral
25.) Retroreflectors
26.) Yes, I was Right! It is Obvious!
27.) Edible Lasers
28.) Pyrotechnic Lasers
29.) Defunct Lasers
30.) The Phantom Laser
31.) The Case of the Oily Mirrors; A Locked Room mystery
32.) Pinhole Glasses
33.) Undulations

III. Pop Culture
34.) This is Your Cat on Lasers
35.) Dord
36.) Zap!
37.) Mystic Cameras
38.) Playing With Light
39.) I Must Find That Tractor Beam
40.) The Rise and Fall and Rise of the Starbow
41.) Diamonds in the Dark
42.) A Popular History of the Laser
43.) Pop Culture Errors in Optics
44.) Pop Spectrum
45.) The Telephote
Afterword

Editorial Reviews

"This unique collection of essays resolves all kinds of interesting questions about optics that appear in history and popular culture. Dr. Wilk has done a splendid job in researching the material and providing answers at a level that will be accessible to a very wide range of readers."
—Mark Fox, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Sheffield

"Do you wonder how the rainbow was divined into colors or how ray guns came to science fiction? Stephen Wilk tells the real histories behind optical myths and stories. Great fun for the curious mind."
—Jeff Hecht, author of Beam: The Race to Make the Laser

"[Readers] will be rewarded with both plenty of optics-based entertainment and some excellent knowledge, worthy of Stephen Fry and QI."
—Popular Science

"I certainly learned a lot about our fascinating field, and was delightfully amused. You will be, too!" —Vasudevan Lakshminarayanan, professor of optometry, physics and electrical and computer engineering, University of Waterloo, Optics & Photonics News

From the Publisher