I. History
Ancient Optics : Magnification Without Lenses
The Solar Weapon of Archimedes
Claudius Ptolemy's Law of Refraction
Antonio de Ulloa's Mystery
The Miracle of St. Gascoigne
Rays of the Sun
Roy G. Biv
George Christoph Lichtenberg
Hopkinson's Silk Handkerchief
First Light : Thomas Melville and the Beginnings of Spectroscopy
Mediocrity and Illumination
Even If You Can't Draw a Straight Line
A Sea Change
Thomas Pearsall and the Ultraviolet
If at First You Don't Succeed
More than a Burner
Apply Light Pressure
Sound Movies, the World's Fair, and Stellar Spectroscopy
Déjà vu
The Magic Lantern of Omar Khayyam
II. Weird Science
The Yellow Sun Paradox
Once in a Blue Moon
Chromatic Dispersions
The Eye in the Spiral
Retroreflectors
Yes, I Was Right! It Is Obvious!
Edible Lasers
Pyrotechnic Lasers
Defunct Lasers
The Phantom Laser
The Case of the Oily Mirrors; A Locked Room Mystery
Pinhole Glasses
Undulations
III. Pop Culture
This is Your Cat on Lasers
Dord
Zap!
Mystic Cameras
Playing With Light
I Must Find That Tractor Beam
The Rise and Fall and Rise of the Starbow
Diamonds in the Dark
A Popular History of the Laser
Pop Culture Errors in Optics
Pop Spectrum
The Telephote
Afterword.