  The controversial term "nondiffracting beam" was introduced into optics by
Durnin in 1987. Discussions related to that term revived interest in problems
of the light diffraction and resulted in an appearance of the new research
direction of the classical optics dealing with the localized transfer of
electromagnetic energy. In the paper, the physical concept of the
nondiffracting propagation is presented and the basic properties of the
nondiffracting beams are reviewed. Attention is also focused to the
experimental realization and to applications of the nondiffracting beams.
