Biography of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), one of the most famous scientists and inventors of all time. He is best remembered for his invention of the telescope, which caused him to question the contemporary belief that the Earth was the...

Biography of Willebrord Snell (1580-1626), a Dutch mathematician known best for his work in refractive indices.

Biography of Etienne-Louis Malus (1775-1812), a famous French mathematician and physicist, best known for his work in double refraction and in polarization.

Biography of Anders Jonas Angstrom (1814-1874), a Swedish physicist who pioneered the field of spectroscopy. He was also well known for his work in mathematics and astronomy.

Explains what optical illusions are and offers many examples to try.

A 36-page booklet of activities and experiments for exploring the properties of and nature of light. Includes a section on careers in optics. As this is a Girl Scouts booklet, it was created with girls in mind, but would be equally...

A collection of tutorials and interactive resources, from basic to advanced, that explain concepts related to the science of light.

Students discover how mirrors affect optics in this module through reading informational text, watching animations, and answering self-checking practice questions.

This interactive unit will help students to understand the basics of geometric optics. Learn what happens when light strikes the boundary between two media as well as the difference between a real and virtual image? Also explore the law...

The moon appears bigger at the horizon just as it is rising over the treetops, than it does later in the evening when it is overhead. This is because our perception of its size changes based on where it is in the sky. In this human...

Some molecules can be either left- or right-"handed." The left- and right-handed molecules have the same number and type of atoms, and their chemical structures look identical, but they are actually mirror images of each other. Many...

This resource provides information on light as well as links to additional sites on light and optics.

Highly informational optic site for kids provides everything one might want to know about light. Various topics include light basics, controlling light, lenses, complex lenses, what's cool about lasers and much more!

Learn how the eyes play tricks on us when we look at optical illusions. This resource explains many of the techniques used to challenge our visual perception.

Biography of Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788-1827), a French physicist best known for his pioneering work in optics.

An experiment in optical illusions. Understand how seeing is a joint effort between your eyes and your brain.

An activity with an optical illusion that will have your eyes seeing it and then not seeing it! Learn the science behind what makes the dot on the page "disappear".

An activity with an optical illusion that will have your eyes seeing a cluster of boxes but is it really boxes? In this activity, explore this illusion and what happens to trick your brain to seeing what it sees.

Create an optical illusion with this activity. Understand what your brain interprets if it receives conflicting information from your eyes.

The National Optical Astronomy Observatory runs most of the big professional optical telescopes in the United States and this is their homepage. It includes information about the many facilities they run, some of the recent science...

Light! How do we see? What makes light? Find out everything you need to know through the Q&As on this site.

Try one of these 33 perception activities in your classroom.

A glossary explaining the definitions of terms used in discussing the science of light.

For most westerners, and indeed for many Arabs, the spectacular achievements of Arabic language science from the eighth through the 16th centuries come as a startling discovery, as if an unknown continent had suddenly appeared on the...