140 years ago, John Henry Poynting demonstrated “by what paths and according to what law” electromagnetic energy travels. Theory and experiment now also reveal how waves acquire information as they scatter through their environment.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
![](https://cdn.statically.io/img/media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41567-024-02550-9/MediaObjects/41567_2024_2550_Fig1_HTML.png)
References
Poynting, J. H. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 175, 343–361 (1884).
Hüpfl, J. et al. Nat. Phys. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-024-02519-8 (2024).
Bouchet, D. et al. Nat. Phys. 17, 564–568 (2021).
Giovannetti, V. et al. Nat. Photon. 5, 222–229 (2011).
Liu, J. et al. J. Phys. A 53, 023001 (2020).
Gonzalez-Ballestero, C. Science 374, 3027 (2021).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The author declares no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Goetschy, A. Information gets into the flow with wave scattering. Nat. Phys. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-024-02550-9
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-024-02550-9