For more than a century, scientists have known that waves can behave in ways that seem to defy common sense, from freak walls ...

Ship waves, the complex patterns generated as vessels displace water, remain a subject of significant scientific and engineering interest. Traditionally described by Kelvin’s theory of ship wakes, ...

MIT physicists have performed an idealized version of one of the most famous experiments in quantum physics. Their findings demonstrate, with atomic-level precision, the dual yet evasive nature of ...

Physicists at MIT recreated the double-slit experiment using individual photons and atoms held in laser light, uncovering the true limits of light’s wave–particle duality. Their results proved ...

Schematic of the MIT experiment: Two single atoms floating in a vacuum chamber are illuminated by a laser beam and act as the two slits. The interference of the scattered light is recorded with a ...