Each of this book's 32 essays discusses a chosen topic, at a level that is generally within that of a four-year degree course in Physics. The essays supplement (indeed sometimes correct) treatments usually given, or supplies reasoning that tends to fall through the cracks. The author uses his life long experience of tutorial teaching at Oxford to know what topics often need such discussion, for clarification, or for avoidance of common confusions. The book contains accounts of even-standard topics, accounts that offer an unusual emphasis, or a fresh insight, or more than customary rigour, or a cross-link to apparently unrelated material. The student (and their teachers) who really wants to understand physics will find this book indispensable. Often the outcome of tutorial discussion has been an understanding that lies a little to the side of what is presented in standard texts. Such understanding is presented here in the essays. The topics covered are diverse and have something useful to say across most areas of a physics degree.

The book describes classical (non-quantum) optical phenomena and the instruments and technology based on them. It includes many cutting-edge areas of modern physics and its applications which are not covered in many larger and more expensive books.

Each of this book's 32 essays discusses a chosen topic, at a level that is generally within that of a four-year degree course in Physics. The essays supplement (indeed sometimes correct) treatments usually given, or supplies reasoning that tends to fall through the cracks. The author uses his life long experience of tutorial teaching at Oxford to know what topics often need such discussion, for clarification, or for avoidance of common confusions. The book contains accounts of even-standard topics, accounts that offer an unusual emphasis, or a fresh insight, or more than customary rigour, or a cross-link to apparently unrelated material. The student (and their teachers) who really wants to understand physics will find this book indispensable. Often the outcome of tutorial discussion has been an understanding that lies a little to the side of what is presented in standard texts. Such understanding is presented here in the essays. The topics covered are diverse and have something useful to say across most areas of a physics degree.

This work gives accounts of non-quantum optical phenomena and of instruments and technology based on them, at a level suitable for the last two years of an honours degree in physics and for graduates starting out. Topics covered include the conventional (diffraction, coherence, thin films, holography) and the less conventional (etendue, Gaussian beams, laser cavities, CD reader, confocal microscope) which belong in today's university courses, for example, to support laser physics. Even the conventional material has frequently been given a fresh presentation by giving a tidier-than-usual route through a calculation, or finding insightful connections with other parts of physics, or simply avoiding common errors. Problems offer opportunities for checking the reader's basic understanding, or for taking a careful route through reasoning, or for checking orders of magnitude. But most problems contain exploratory and critical material: investigating possible alternative approaches, asking searching questions about fundamentals, or solving apparent paradoxes.