What happens when a wave passes through some opening? It diffracts - or you like, you could say "bends". If the size of the opening is comparable to the wavelength of the wave, the bending can be ...

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 ...

Today, astronomers seek to observe the faintest and most distant objects possible. Extremely Large Telescopes (ELTs), with apertures in the order of several dozen meters, are the next generation ...

The idea of wavefront recording and reconstruction, known today as holography, was formulated by Gabor 1. His proof-of-principle experiment was done with the light of a high pressure mercury lamp; it ...

One of the coolest things about physics is that the same basic concept can pop up in several seemingly unrelated things: say, a CD, the seed shrimp’s antennae, certain fossils in the Burgess shale, ...

The spectrum of laser technologies available to hackers has gradually widened from basic gas lasers through CO2 tubes, diode lasers, and now fiber lasers. One of the newer entries is the MOPA laser, ...

The first real-time movie of large molecules creating an interference pattern after passing through two slits has been made by an international team of physicists. As well as being a beautiful example ...