For over a century, light has both helped and limited our view of the ...

Quantum physics is the realm of the strange. And one of the strangest discoveries in the field is also one of the most fundamental: Particles fired at barriers with two slits in them can act like ...

Whenever light interacts with matter, light appears to slow down. This is not a new observation and standard wave mechanics can describe most of these daily phenomena. For example, when light is ...

Long before quantum mechanics existed, a scientist developed a powerful way of describing motion by drawing an analogy between particles and light.

Can we turn back time? Ask a savvy physicist, and the answer will be “it depends.” Schemes for retrograde time travel abound but usually involve irreconcilable paradoxes and rely on outlandish ...

University of Illinois Physics Professor Paul Kwiat and members of his research group have developed a new tool for precision measurement at the nanometer scale in scenarios where background noise and ...

Scientists in Japan have managed to manipulate light as though it was being influenced by gravity. By carefully distorting a photonic crystal, the team was able to invoke “pseudogravity” to bend a ...

Physicists have discovered that when beams of light interact at the quantum level, they can generate ghost-like particles that briefly emerge from nothing and affect real matter. This rare phenomenon, ...

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 ...

Metal clusters made of thousands of atoms showed quantum interference, offering new insight into how large objects follow quantum rules.

Many seemingly mundane materials, such as the stainless steel on refrigerators or the quartz in a countertop, harbor fascinating physics inside them. These materials are crystals, which in physics ...