Have you wondered why the sky is blue? Why the sunset is red? How hummingbirds show us their many colors? Why the road ahead sometimes seems to have water on it, when it does not? Have you wondered how telescopes work to give a magnified image of distant objects? How microscopes provide a magnified image of close objects? How spectroscopes, eye glasses, cameras, binoculars, and similar instruments work? How the simple rear view mirrors in cars dim and provide wide fields of view? In this book, William L. Wolfe describes many of the natural phenomena caused by light and the optical devices that use it in terms everyone can understand.

This book is divided into five major sections. The first is a description of the basic phenomena of optics; the second includes basic optical components and instruments; the third is all about natural optical phenomena; and the fourth part is a collection of applications. The fifth contains descriptions of the above-mentioned great steps in our understanding of the world around us that are directly related to optics.