Light Just Broke Our Intuition About Newton’s Third Law

Physicists have observed a beam of light apparently “swimming” upstream through an optical fluid, challenging our usual intuition about action and reaction.

Using a nonlinear crystal, researchers created non-reciprocal interactions that allow light to reshape its environment and push itself against the flow. The experiment could provide new insights into active quantum systems and eventually inspire self-propelling quantum devices.

This episode includes AI-generated content.