I learned in October 2022’s Breakthrough that the spikes of stars in high-power photos are called diffraction spikes. Why do they appear as two crosses at 45 degrees to each other? The diffraction ...

Imperial physicists have recreated the famous double-slit experiment, which showed light behaving as particles and a wave, in time rather than space. The experiment relies on materials that can change ...

Classical physics theories suggest that when two or more electromagnetic waves interfere destructively (i.e., with their electric fields canceling each other out), they cannot interact with matter. In ...

When two black holes merge or two neutron stars collide, gravitational waves can be generated. They spread at the speed of light and cause tiny distortions in space-time. Albert Einstein predicted ...

A phase-analysis method reveals mid-infrared polaritons inside atomically thin silver dots too small to show a complete wave ...