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Scientists Closer To Invisibility Cloak
Aviran was one of many readers to submit news of a just-announced development in the ongoing quest to develop a working invisibility cloak, writing: "Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible. Researchers have demonstrated for the first time they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects. Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects" Reader bensafrickingenius adds a link to coverage at the Times Online, and notes that "the world's two leading scientific journals, Science and Nature, are expected to report the results this week." Tjeerd adds a link to a Reuters' story carried by Scientific American.
I would have claimed 1st, but someone appears to be cloaked.
Vescere bracis meis.
The lead engineer on the project added "Our engineers are currently testing the cloak extensively in women's locker rooms, on their speeding cars, to sneak into class late, to hide from bumbling crooks, and in other comic scenarios which have, to date, only been seen in lame movies. Our hope is to perfect the technology to the point where an engineer can sneak up on the bully that tormented him in high school and kick him in the testicles." After detailing the particulars of the complex optic engineering of the project, he concluded with "The day is now in sight where we will have a cloaking device truly worthy of an early-90's Kirk Cameron movie--or, God willing, even a Michael J. Fox made-for-TV movie from the 80's."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Scientists closer to fulfilling fantasy of hiding in girl's locker room.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
At first I was going to complain about the lack of pictures, but then I realized they wouldn't be too revealing anyway.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Very thin 2D objects eh? Nice.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080811-meta-material-does-not-render-anything-invisible.html Oh Ars.
Knows everything about nothing and nothing about everything.
An obvious use will be from a military aspect. I wonder about how this technology will be received by various insurgents in our numerous war campaigns. Imagine a small troop deployment vanishing and reappearing in front of a goat-herder turned freedom fighter. I don't know if he would cut-n-run or stand fast to fight the "demons"...
"the world's two leading scientific journals, Science and Nature, are expected to report the results this week."
You can find the Nature abstract here. And if you have a subscription, you can read the full research and see the data they collected from experiments.
According to the Ars Technica article on this, the Science link will be here.
There seems to be a few more papers and articles on this but if you're interested you can search for optical metamaterials with negative refractive indexes.
My work here is dung.
"His cloak is perfect... no tachyon emissions, no residual antiprotons." on a serious note, would this not be vulnerable to infra-red cameras?
Any problem caused by a tank can be solved by a tank.
This was posted in Pharyngula yesterday. The usual prescient commenters noted that nowhere on the researchers' pages was there active speculation about an "invisibility cloak", and it was probably just some reporters going wacky over the possibilities. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/08/get_your_invisibility_cloak_he.php
This story has popped up here and there in the press today, but when I actually RTFA the actual breakthrough is negative refractive index materials, in the visible spectrum.
The application is not invisible tanks and infantry, but microscopy.
See here for photoshopped image that enhances the misleading headline http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7553061.stm
And the locker room will be full of girls wearing invisibility cloaks.
We live it 3 dimensions.So who cares if they can cloak 2d objects. lol
Sign me up for a blessed +5 waterproof one.
lol: You see no door there!
Yeah, they probably turned out the lights. See? Ha! no you don't! We're MIT! Take that you Stanford weenies!
I seem to recall seeing something as well. Though I've long figured that in certain applications the use of fiber optics could do a pretty good job of making something at least really, really hard to see that it was there.
Of course I didn't RTFA... why would I do that? You really are new here aren't you? Don't let my UID fool you.
I mean, I can see right through it.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
That's not actually photoshopped, its for a different technology where they can project "3D" images onto a surface and it will appear to be far away. Lots of tiny glass beads and whatnot. If i drape you in that stuff and take a projector and project a car onto you, if there is the same car behind you, you will be camoflaged. The only downside is that you need all of these projectors and whatnot to project a background image.
Think Solid Snakes octocamo meets a movie theater.
Aren't ALL 2 dimensional objects very thin? In fact, wouldn't they have a 0 thickness?
To get my laptop past US customs without having it 'confiscated'...
Seriously though - how long do you think until any tech like this is restricted to military use only ? If you actually do achieve human-level visible-spectrum invisibility (even if you have to move very slowly to avoid being caught by reflection shifts and such and have to avoid anybody with IR) - it will be banned for civilian use like a shot. The people who want it for 'hunting purposes' will kick up a fuss but we couldn't take the risk of an invisible man sneaking into the white house and farting on the president's desk now could we ?
Okay... I tried to become serious but I failed... let's try this again:
Considering the real security implications of true invisibility from the naked eye - do you think it will be banned/restricted ? Do you think it SHOULD be banned or restricted ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I'll believe it when I see it.
now they just can't find the blasted thing.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Being able to 'bend' light around an object is only a minor part of invisibility, I think - an object isn't invisible unless you can't see it in any way. The problem is that there is no guarantee that the light will appear to have followed a straight line through the 'invisible' object, as far as I can see, so there will be a visible distortion of the background.
Mono-layer substrates that are on average one atom (or molecule) thick are considered 2-d materials in physics. And depending on the context, such as the wavelengths or other length scale-setting parameters in use, 2-d can be much thicker.
A true invisibility cloak must gather every incident photon and then re-emit it out the other side of the cloak as if it had passed through the wearer.
The whole point of the negative index of refraction is the ability to do just that. We're obviously a long way from doing it, but scientists are beginning to see a glimmer of hope.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
I know everyone is making with the jokes,but I for one really don't like the idea of this. Yet again,we have scientists seeing if they CAN do something,rather than if they SHOULD do something. As aggressive as the US has been lately,does anyone really want gunships,fighter jets,and whole squads of special forces rendered invisible? Not to mention what a powerful weapon for "regime change" this would be. No country would be able to protect their leaders when you could set up a sniper a couple of blocks away from them without ever being seen. All around,with such a huge potential for abuse and no positive applications that I can see,it just sounds like a giant bad idea. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Don't know about the patent, but I can claim prior art. I have an invisible cloak that I wear all the time at home. I used to wear it in public, but kept getting arrested.
Is there an emperor out there looking for an outfit for a parade? I have a spare that I'm willing to sell.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
I know everyone is making with the jokes,but I for one really don't like the idea of this. Yet again,we have scientists seeing if they CAN do something,rather than if they SHOULD do something. As aggressive as the US has been lately,does anyone really want gunships,fighter jets,and whole squads of special forces rendered invisible?
Hear hear! Perhaps we should revise the Geneva convention. From now on, all snipers must jump up and down waving their arms and yelling "Look at me" before taking their shot. All submarines must have PA systems that continually blast Rick Astley music when they're submerged. All spy drones must broadcast Flight of the Valkyries when on a mission.
I understand your point but, as long as the world has weapons, governments will be spending money on improving them (range/cloaking/accuracy/flexibility/etc.) If you go to the government leaders who control weapons funding and ask them "Should this weapon be improved?", once they're done laughing the answer will certainly be "Yes." And, assuming that this product would be fielded for military use as you imply, it would be seen as a measure to both increase our effectiveness on the battlefield and protect our troops. That would change the government's answer from "Yes" to "Hell yes." Right? Wrong? Doesn't matter - just the world we live in.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
When are the flying broomsticks coming?
I see you've not met my ex-wife.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I just sold one of these fabulous cloaks to a neighbouring monarch. Mind you, he wasn't too happy when he went out in the street and the kids all shouted out "the emperor's got no clothes on".
I have another one, but I put it down somewhere and now I can't find it.
While we are limiting ourselves from creating an invisibility cloak do we have to ban warfare at night and stealth aircraft? I mean, those things just aren't fair. In fact let's get rid of guns, camouflage, body armor, aircraft, and submarines. We can settle things with a boxing match. Technological advances in warfare has continued for centuries now. We've been down this path before with other technology but I wouldn't be too worried. Just as devices like these are created others are created to defeat them. It is the natural progression of weapons.
Time makes more converts than reason
Even a perfect optical cloak would still be detectable in many ways. Bear in mind that wearing a perfect optical cloak will render you blind. This means you'll have to navigate using other methods. You could wear infrared goggles, but that means you're visible in infrared light and therefore detectable. You could make yourself invisible to all wavelengths, perhaps, and then navigate by sonar. A microphone will pick that up easily enough. Likewise radar. You could, I suppose, navigate via a remote camera signal that displays your surroundings on a screen located inside the cloaking device. That would be disorienting but one could probably train for it or use a VR representation of your surroundings. Assuming, then, that you can obfuscate the video signal and avoid emitting any light yourself, then you'll be foiled by a cheap fog curtain at the entrance of a building. Or, if you want to be more practical about it, a metal detector. If the target of your assassination attempt is outdoors, you'd best hope that there's no precipitation, smoke, smog, or fog. And you won't be able just to point and shoot, either. Remember, you're blind.
Even assuming a partial optical cloak that lets you be invisible "enough" (perhaps in shadows) and still see somehow, you'll still be detectable. If this technology becomes available, technology to defeat it will, too. Off the top of my head... a sonar or radar (preferably sonar, I think humans are transparent to radar) system that compares the visual or infrared spectrum with the echos. You probably wouldn't even need a human to operate it; a computer could simply find the discrepancies between the images and report them. A detection system like this would probably be affordable even to smaller nations. If you wanted to get really paranoid, you could even have the computer automatically target human-shaped echo discrepancies and fire long range or remote tasers at them, killing the cloak as soon as it is spotted.
Or, save yourselves all the trouble, sprinkle sand everywhere and just watch for footprints. Or hold all public events in the middle of huge, 2-inch deep lakes.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Resistance to an idea won't prevent its reality.
This technology will ultimately be available, and mankind will never learn to cope with it until it is a reality.
If we hadn't pushed so hard for nuclear weapons (which have killed far far fewer people than, say, firebombs or religion), we wouldn't have had the cleanest safest source of energy on the planet as soon as we did. (Note: windmills are a joke, and solar panels don't last nearly long enough for their initial cost.)
If only there were a way to make some dastardly weapon out of geothermal power...
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
>Just as devices like these are created others are created to defeat them. It is the natural progression of weapons.
You mean tools, not weapons. Many things that have potential use as weapons have non-weapon uses as well. It's only a weapon when it's used as one. Otherwise it's a tool. A knife is a tool when you use it to slice bread.
Actually I was a big fan when the US first invaded Iraq of simply having
George W Vs. Saddam in a one time event! winner takes Iraq. ONLY ON PAYPERVIEW!
Sadly that never happened...
Pandering karma whoring and history revision 4tW!
Want karma? Just paint the US as aggressive, W as stupid, M$ as a monopoly, Jobs as the second coming and linux as the solution to all of life's ills.
Ignore that the US overthrew a horrific theocracy that harbored AQ. Dismiss that Saddam and Ba'ath party invaded two neighbors because they could and killed a million or so of their own people. Write off the billions in arms deals and oil concessions and debts between Saddam and France, Germany, China and Russia, the primary opposition to regime change. Forget that the sanctions were about to end, leaving Saddam free to rebuild his military and WMD programs. Ignore that Iraq (and its neighbors, and the international community) would have endured another decade of Saddam followed by rule by his equally vicious sons. Point out costs and troops losses, and ignore that both are the result of religious conflict and terrorists from other countries(or that the losses are comparatively low). Blame our soldiers for civilian deaths, instead of the insurgents and jihadists hiding behind the civilians, or directly killing the civilians. Talk about 'blood for oil' and ignore that we hadn't needed Iraq's oil for ten years prior to the invasion. Drone about not giving the inspectors a chance to finish instead of talking about the twelve years of diplomacy, sanctions, inspections and shell games played by Saddam.
If someone calls you out, call them names like neocon or jingoist or sheeple, or use your mod points to bury their post. Don't worry about citing evidence, only people who disagree with you need to do that. And if what you are claiming gives you a warm self-satisfied feeling, then the facts don't matter anyway.
It's that easy!
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
whole squads of special forces rendered invisible
imagine whole squads of geeks rendered invisible around hot women!
oh wait.. n/m ;)
Um...one word? Blackwater. I have NO problems with the soldiers of the US military,I have many friends that have fought in Iraq. What I have a problem with is the fact that the government seems to be in love with mercs,who WILL end up with this technology. The men and women I know who have served believe in words like honor and justice. A merc will happily shoot an entire family for a paycheck. To see what kind of guys they are simply read here. And now it looks like they are being used on US soil which means it ain't just Iraqis that have to worry.
And the simple fact of the matter is the Army Rangers don't need this stuff.They already ARE invisible. believe me,I know. I had a buddy who was a Ranger get me a visitor pass to watch some exercises in the '80s,and he and his buddies decided to play "spook the hippie". needless to say,I was the hippie. We were walking to the range when suddenly the ground moved and I'm surrounded by Rangers. Hell,I wasn't a foot from them and I never knew they were there. And just as quickly they blended back into their surroundings and were gone. What worries me about this stuff is it in the hands of mercs like Blackwater. Would we have ever had King's "I have a dream" speech if this kind of tech was in the hands of mercs then?
What worries me is the genie getting out of the bottle. Like an earlier poster said,what if you wrap a chemical or biological bomb in this stuff? Do you think your average police force is going to have the tech to detect this stuff? But as always this is my 02c,YMMV. And as far as you accusing me of Karma whoring,mine has been at excellent for years and I couldn't honestly care less. Anyone who has read my past posts knows I simply speak what is on my mind. And this tech looks like it is going to bring a world of bad and little if any good. Maybe we'll get lucky and it won't be horribly abused. But I'm not betting on it.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I don't think so. One may absorb some light without having to reflect any.
everything in moderation
Then you'd be a dark spot, or two dark eye shaped spots.
--why?
Even a perfect optical cloak would still be detectable in many ways...
Very clever list of suggestions, but you forgot the most obvious one: a tachyon detection grid. If it worked for Geordi La Forge, it damn well works for me.
Given the sensitivity of passive night-vision technology, I doubt the light you need to get a useful picture would be missed by anyone looking at you. If it was enough for the human eye to detect it'd still probably only be noticeable if you stood in front of a solid white wall, and even then it might look like a smudge.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
That's easy. Point your AK-47 at someone else and say "Slice that loaf of bread."
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
Raw science should not be bound by vague concepts of potential unethical use of discoveries.
If we followed that idea we would ( at best ) still be sitting in a dark cold gloomy cave. Wondering if we get to eat tonight, or be eaten instead.
---- Booth was a patriot ----