How the ray gun got its zap : odd excursions into optics / Stephen R. Wilk.

Includes bibliographical references.

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 -- DeÌjaÌ 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.