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Scientists Make Item Invisible to Microwaves
Vicissidude writes "A team of American and British researchers has made a cloak of invisibility. In their experiment the scientists used microwaves to try and detect a copper cylinder. Like light and radar waves, microwaves bounce off objects making them visible and creating a shadow, though it has to be detected with instruments. If you can hide something from microwaves, you can hide it from radar and visible light. In effect the device, made of metamaterials — engineered mixtures of metal and circuit board materials, which could include ceramic, Teflon or fiber composite materials — channels the microwaves around the object being hidden. When water flows around a rock, co-author David R. Smith explained, the water recombines after it passes the rock and people looking at the water downstream would never know it had passed a rock. The first working cloak was in only two dimensions and did cast a small shadow, Smith acknowledged. The next step is to go for three dimensions and to eliminate any shadow."
This title is absurd. Invisibilty?
The research is very kewl though, and i hope it progresses. But why not lay off the stupid titles, and produce results based on kewlness or usefulness, instead of what can be termed with a popular buzzword. Information Technology is bad enough from its buzzword infusion. Must we destroy legitamte research/discoveries as well?
Have you read my journal today?
Sounds like a better version of stealth. I recall reading that an early attempt at a stealth ship did TOO good of a job of dispersing microwaves (compared to background reflection of empty ocean) and showed up as a moving 'hole' on surface radar screens. Assuming that this technology could be applied to bending light around an object, it would need to do so without creating obvious distortions.
[Insert pithy quote here]
You obviously didn't grow up on too much star trek. Any true trekkie would know that its a Romulan Warbird and a Klingon Bird of Prey...
If it's diverting all the light around you, there's no light to get in and hit your eye so you can see.
The solution would be much more complex than the basic cloak. You'd have to let some light in, but make sure it didn't get back out again. I can see that being problimatic.
If forums teach us anything, it is that logic and critical thinking should be required courses in the public schools.
There's this thing called a pinhole camera, it's a relatively new advance. By allowing this pinhole of light in with the proper equipment just enough light could be absorbed to allow the user to navigate. Of course there would be a visible pinhole floating in space, but could you reliably pick it out at a distance of more than a few feet?
It just means that organized combat would evolve to take advantage of them also. Ever since WW2 we've been moving to smaller and smaller units working as independent organizations, then re-combining to carry out more complex tasks. With the introduction of cloaking technology you'd see the extreme end of that. 4-8 man squads operating independently on foot and light vehicles, hunting down guerrillas the same way the currently hunt us. Biggest obstacle to us doing that NOW is that we're so easy to identify. If we could have small units operating all over a city, totally invisible to anyone...well, good luck trying to plant IED's, or even gathering at your buddy Ahmed's house to discuss tomorrow's plan of attack.