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 ...

The interaction of light with objects and media moving at relativistic and superluminal speeds enables unconventional phenomena such as Fresnel drag, Hawking radiation, and light amplification.

Increasingly complex applications such as artificial intelligence require ever more powerful and power-hungry computers to run. Optical computing is a proposed solution to increase speed and power ...