When people look into a mirror, they see an image of themselves behind the glass. That image results from light rays encountering the shiny surface and bouncing back, or reflecting, providing a ...

Exploiting a novel technique called phase discontinuity, researchers have induced light rays to behave in a way that defies the centuries-old laws of reflection and refraction. The discovery has led ...

Refraction close refractionProcess by which a wave changes speed and sometimes direction upon entering a denser or less dense medium, eg a light ray changes direction when refracted by a lens. of ...

Introduction Can you imagine a bouncy ball that could bounce back and forth between two walls, infinitely—that is, forever? Wouldn't that be amazing? What if, instead of a ball, light was bouncing ...

Complete control of spatially propagating waves (PWs) and surface waves (SWs) is an ultimate goal that scientists and engineers seek for, in which negative reflection of PW and negative surface wave ...

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 ...

Sketch of the concept: a disordered medium (top) is made perfectly transmitting by placing a custom-made anti-reflection coating in front of it (bottom). (Courtesy: TU Wien) A new technique that ...

Have you ever sat on the bottom of a swimming pool and pondered your watery ceiling? Most of the surface is a sheet of light blue, and you can't see through it, even though the water is clear. But ...