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Tsunami Invisibility Cloak
BuzzSkyline writes "New Scientist is reporting on a lab-scale experiment that may lead to a tsunami invisibility cloak, which could protect islands, open-ocean platforms and even coastlines from dangerous waves by effectively making them invisible to tsunamis. The technology is based on the same sorts of negative index of refraction ideas that some physicists are exploring as they try to make an optical invisibility cloak, except that it works with water instead of light."
Notice when the Island moved at the end of last year? What date was it? What happened around that time? Tsunami.
Move along - Nothing to see here.
And invisibility will help you against a giant wave? I wasn't aware that Tsunamis basically hunted those vulnerable islands and coastlines down for large scale destruction.
What's wrong with these scientists? Why work on making tsunamis invisible when we have enough trouble with the ordinary, visible ones already?
http://pinopsida.com
Anyone else notice that their scale model looked an awful lot like a certain circle of monolithic stones? We know the technology works. When was the last time Britain was hit by a tsunami?
-=Bang Bang=-
The brakes on the Semi-Truck behind you go out... 'Quick! The invisibility cloak will save us!'
I thought we were supposed to consider that lorry to be a uniform sphere? Now you're saying we should treat it as a wave, too? I didn't realize light shared wave-particle duality with semi trucks.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Having said that, I'm not entirely clear how you can use the device described to protect coastlines. It looks like you need a 360 degree coverage for the device to work. That's not going to work for something like say...China's coast.
I think it could be made to work... but it would suck to be in Iceland.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
If you can't see the tsunami, the tsunami can't see you.
Read the article? I'm too busy spouting pithy one-liners and making knee-jerk reactions based on my limited understanding of the subject matter! This is /. after all right?
-=Bang Bang=-
The brakes on the Semi-Truck behind you go out... 'Quick! The invisibility cloak will save us!'
I thought we were supposed to consider that lorry to be a uniform sphere? Now you're saying we should treat it as a wave, too? I didn't realize light shared wave-particle duality with semi trucks.
No no no no! It's a series of tubes!
Well, they do have a wave function, but the wavelengths are really small....
E=hv.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
First, you draw this tsunami-wave canceling device on a placemat, labeling the ocean as "START" and the coastline as "FINISH". Print out thousands of them and hand out the placemats to family restaurants, along with a few boxes of crayons.
Then, you just go around collecting the "used" placemats, kindly filled out by unsuspecting 5 year-olds, and deliver them to cargo-ship captains.
Problem solved.
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D'oh!
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With a hammer?
-Taylor
Worldwide Military budgets: $2100 billion. Worldwide Space Exploration budgets: $38 billion. Really, world? Really?
OK, so after we surround every body of land with these things, tsunamis will go around all the obstacles and keep going around and around the planet. So how many tsunamis going around and around does it take to make an ocean useless?
Actually I think the best tsunami-fighting device is a giant ball of string; this is pretty clearly proven by the town of Cawker City, Kansas, home to the largest ball of twine in the world, has never been hit by a tsunami. So that proves that the string stops tsunamis; my logic here is impeccable. As for Britain, a lot of people think that country's resistance to tsunamis is due to Stonehenge, but the reality is a much simpler explanation -- the ubiquity of umbrellas. Remember Occam's razor, folks!
> This is /. after all right?
Yeah screw the lousy standards around here.
I'm going back to the rest of the internet where they have whole pithy paragraphs and entire knee-jerk domains.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
The whole idea is just silly. Everyone knows the only way you can save your island from the spiteful anger of the sky gods is through fasting and prayer.