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."

Comments

Dharma Initiative anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice when the Island moved at the end of last year? What date was it? What happened around that time? Tsunami.

Nothing to see

[Anonymous Coward]

Move along - Nothing to see here.

invisibility will help?

[mackil]

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.

Re:invisibility will help?

[Thomas M Hughes]

I know the wording is awkward. But, keep in mind, light is understood to be a wave as well. Thus, the mechanic of causing a tsunami to go seamlessly around an island should be nearly the same as causing a light beam to go around the object. This wouldn't block the Tsunami wave, the wave would continue as normal, as if nothing had happened. The Island also would not be touched by the wave either. The metaphor seems to work.

Re:invisibility will help?

[Shadow Wrought]

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.

Well they tried giant towels, figuring that the Tsunami would think that since the Island couldn't see it, then it must not be able to see the Island, but that didn't work because Tsunami's are far to clever for that. Which isn't too surprising since Tsunami's are proven pack hunters, always attacking in waves.

Feasibility

[fiannaFailMan]

Quoth TFA:

But Guenneau cautions that large structures like islands and coastlines are unlikely to become invisible anytime soon, because building the many small islands needed to protect one is such a big job.

"It's crazy â" maybe only people in Dubai could do this," he adds, referring to the spectacular artificial islands built there.

Smaller structures such as offshore oil platforms would be easier to protect, he says.

It's a nice idea but a barrier like this would have to be made of strong stuff. That Asian tsunami a few years ago was able to pick up ten-feet-tall concrete blocks and throw them around like Lego bricks. I'm not sure if I'd want to be sitting downstream of something like this unless they're thinking of making them out of low-lying artificial islands, and in that case I don't know how effective they'd be under a tall enough wave. I'd like to have seen a bit more in the way of diagrams and specifics in TFA.

Jeez

[atomicthumbs]

What's wrong with these scientists? Why work on making tsunamis invisible when we have enough trouble with the ordinary, visible ones already?

Waterhenge!

[MaxwellEdison]

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?

Re:Waterhenge!

[AshtangiMan]

Right, so before that structure was built. That must have been the event that led to its construction.

Re:But what about the other islands

[Thomas M Hughes]

Not exactly. When you're invisible, the light simply passes through where you would have been as normal. You're just not in the way to block those waves anymore. According to the article, the water from the Tsunami mostly goes straight through as if the island wasn't even there. So, if there is a wave that originates from the east, it hits this cloak, the wave will continue it's movement west as if it never hit an island at all. The only ones who would be affected would be anyone who's behind that island, who has been using it to break their Tsunamis in the past.

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.

Re:Yeah but those islands act as barriers...

[amRadioHed]

As is always the case, those with the money get to decide.

Re:But what about the other islands

[MaxwellEdison]

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?