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:	9780199371310
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/07/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

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.) D?j? 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