The matter we see around us consists of atoms with attached electrons, pairwise “glueing” atoms together in molecules, and giving objects their color by resonantly interacting with light. This talk starts out with how the strong electric fields of intense pulsed lasers can probe and modify the electron pair within the helium atom. Our experiments reveal a time-domain picture of absorption with a link between a laser- controllable phase and the Fano resonance. The same general physics mechanism currently unlocks new science areas ranging from laser- driven large solution-phase molecular dynamics to precision spectroscopy with hard-x-ray light.