Seeing the world in new ways

The evolution of visual technology spans centuries, from Italian magnifying lenses based on Ibn al-Haytham's optics to Galileo's telescopes revealing Jupiter's moons. Today's Vera C. Rubin Observatory features the world's largest digital camera with a three-mirror system to observe distant cosmic objects never seen before, while fractals—irregular shapes found throughout nature—continue to fascinate mathematicians and may help solve the Riemann hypothesis.