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VTHow a Sieve Turns Fairy Lights into Stars ✨
Optical diffraction occurs because light behaves as a wave and spreads when it encounters sharp boundaries. The thin wires in a sieve introduce abrupt changes to the wavefront, so the light is redistributed into specific angular directions rather than travelling straight through. A vertical edge produces a horizontal diffraction spread, while a horizontal edge produces a vertical spread. Since the sieve contains two perpendicular sets of edges, their diffraction fields combine to create the characteristic four-point star around each light. In essence, the star shape is simply the diffraction signature of the sieve geometry.
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