Physicists discover method for emulating nonlinear quantum electrodynamics in a laboratory setting

On the big screen, in video games and in our imaginations, lightsabers flare and catch when they clash together. In reality, as in a laser light show, the beams of light go through each other, creating spiderweb patterns. That clashing, or interference, happens only in fiction--and in places with enormous magnetic and electric fields, which happens in nature only near massive objects such as neutron stars. Here, the strong magnetic or electric field reveals that a vacuum isn't truly a void. Inst...