Wyatt Kirkby

The 'fish-eye' lens is an unusual piece of glass: its refractive index changes from the center to the edge so that any ray emitted from any point is focused to the point directly opposite. Making such a lens from ordinary glass is nearly impossible, but physicists found a workaround.

Two dancers on one stage: the triangle and the stripe. In a quantum gas of dysprosium atoms cooled to 62 nanokelvin, these two spatial structures have met for the first time in a single experiment. The gas is held in a trap shaped like a surfboard, and its atoms are among the most magnetic in the periodic table.