Experiments you can run yourself.
Converging lens: where the image forms and whether it is real. Interactive ray construction, the lens equation 1/f = 1/x + 1/y and magnification.
Refraction and reflection of light at the boundary between two media: Snell's law, the critical angle and total internal reflection. An interactive ray simulation.
Spherical mirrors: how concave and convex mirrors form images, and the mirror equation 1/f=1/x+1/y. Interactive ray construction.
Dispersion of light in a prism: why white light separates into the colours of the rainbow. An interactive simulation of a prism and of recombining the colours.
Pinhole camera: how a tiny hole forms an inverted image and why light travels in straight lines. Interactive camera obscura simulation.
Colour mixing: why RGB lights give white, while CMY paints give black. An interactive simulation of the primary colours and of additive and subtractive mixing.
The eye as an optical system: why short-sightedness and long-sightedness arise and how they are corrected with lenses. An interactive simulation.
Scattering of light in the atmosphere: why the sky is blue and the sunset is red. Interactive simulation.
The colour of objects: why an apple is red and how it looks in coloured light. An interactive simulation of reflection, absorption and colour filters.
The wave nature of light: diffraction at a slit and interference (Young's experiment), bright and dark fringes. Interactive simulation.
Polarisation of light: how polarisers transmit and block light, and Malus's law. Interactive simulation of crossed polarisers.
Optical fibre and total internal reflection: why light travels inside the fibre even around bends. Interactive simulation.
A larger semiconductor band gap gives light closer to blue (2014 Nobel Prize).
A classical microscope is limited by the diffraction of light — fluorescence lets you get around it (Nobel Chemistry 2014).
Sharp reflection peaks from a crystal appear only at certain angles — the Bragg condition (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1915).
The blue Cherenkov glow appears when a particle moves faster than light in a given medium (Nobel Prize in Physics 1958).
To capture an electron moving inside an atom, you need an attosecond pulse (Nobel Prize in Physics 2023).