| Preface | p. xiii |
| How light behaves | p. 1 |
| First observations | p. 1 |
| The speed of light in vacuum | p. 13 |
| White light and colors | p. 15 |
| Sidedness | p. 18 |
| Variations in intensity | p. 20 |
| The rainbow | p. 23 |
| Newton's particle theory | p. 33 |
| Theory building | p. 33 |
| The particle theory of refraction | p. 35 |
| Ramifications | p. 40 |
| A decisive test | p. 43 |
| Summary | p. 46 |
| Newton himself | p. 47 |
| A wave theory of light | p. 59 |
| Waves | p. 59 |
| Some general properties of waves | p. 60 |
| Light as a wave? | p. 66 |
| Refraction quantitatively | p. 70 |
| Waves in perspective | p. 76 |
| Interference | p. 80 |
| Interference defined | p. 80 |
| Two-source interference | p. 81 |
| Interference in light? | p. 84 |
| Measuring the wavelength of light | p. 87 |
| Color and wavelength | p. 91 |
| Thomas Young | p. 93 |
| The single slit | p. 95 |
| More interference phenomena | p. 99 |
| Electromagnetic waves | p. 106 |
| The electric field | p. 106 |
| Franklin's clapper | p. 111 |
| The magnetic field | p. 112 |
| The entities | p. 116 |
| Faraday's law | p. 116 |
| Electromagnetic waves | p. 118 |
| The electromagnetic spectrum | p. 122 |
| "Sidedness" explained and explored | p. 126 |
| Odds and ends | p. 130 |
| The photon | p. 141 |
| Preview | p. 141 |
| The photoelectric effect | p. 141 |
| The Compton effect | p. 148 |
| Einstein's Nobel Prize | p. 154 |
| The bare essentials | p. 158 |
| The wave-particle duality | p. 161 |
| Hertz revisited | p. 161 |
| A connection via probability | p. 162 |
| A trajectory for a photon? | p. 166 |
| The wave-particle duality | p. 169 |
| Understanding light: some further help | p. 171 |
| Does the speed of light depend on the motion of the source of light? | p. 176 |
| Transition | p. 176 |
| The question answered | p. 176 |
| A few comments | p. 180 |
| The contrast | p. 181 |
| The principles of the Special Theory of Relativity | p. 183 |
| The big picture | p. 183 |
| The two principles | p. 183 |
| The logic of our development | p. 186 |
| The constancy of the speed of light | p. 188 |
| Synchronizing clocks within a single reference frame | p. 191 |
| The relativity of simultaneity | p. 193 |
| Albert Einstein | p. 195 |
| Time dilation and length contraction | p. 211 |
| Time dilation | p. 211 |
| Checking a tacit assumption: perpendicular lengths | p. 215 |
| An interlude on radioactivity | p. 217 |
| A test of time dilation | p. 223 |
| Length contraction | p. 226 |
| The muons revisited | p. 229 |
| Compendium | p. 230 |
| E=mc[superscript 2] | p. 236 |
| Energy, mass, and momentum reviewed | p. 236 |
| A thought experiment for [Delta]E=([Delta]m)c[superscript 2] | p. 238 |
| Conversions and parallel changes | p. 242 |
| Mass and speed | p. 245 |
| From [Delta]E=([Delta]m)c[superscript 2] to E=mc[superscript 2] | p. 246 |
| Nuclear fission | p. 248 |
| Processes in nuclear physics | p. 252 |
| Scales of energy release | p. 256 |
| Leo Szilard | p. 260 |
| Retrospection | p. 266 |
| The twins | p. 274 |
| Theory | p. 274 |
| Experimental test | p. 277 |
| Reflection | p. 281 |
| The Lorentz transformations | p. 285 |
| Deriving the Lorentz transformations | p. 285 |
| Combining velocities | p. 291 |
| Trying to beat the speed of light | p. 293 |
| The chapter in a nutshell | p. 295 |
| Space and time | p. 302 |
| Glossary | p. 306 |
| Energy | p. 310 |
| The dependence of mass on speed | p. 315 |
| More about E=mc[superscript 2] | p. 319 |
| Index | p. 326 |
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