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How To Cloak Objects At a Distance
KentuckyFC writes "All invisibility cloaks to date work by hiding an object embedded inside them. Now a group of physicists have worked out how to remotely cloak objects that sit outside a cloaking material. The trick is to make the cloaking material with optical properties that are exactly complementary to the space outside them. Complementary means that the material reverses the effect the space has on a plane wave of light passing through it. To an observer this space would appear to vanish. The scientists say that to cloak an object sitting outside the cloaking material, first measure its optical properties and then embed a "complementary image" of the object within the cloak. So a plane wave is first distorted by the object but then restored to a plane by the complementary image of the object within the cloak (abstract). An observer sees nothing. This method has another benefit. Objects hidden in conventional cloaks are blinded because no light enters the cloaked region. But objects that are remotely cloaked like this should still be able to see their surroundings."
You'll know when cloaking is really working when the monthly dupe of "cloaking, this time for real" stops showing up here.
"The trick is to make the cloaking material with optical properties that are exactly complementary to the space outside them. "
So if you are hiding a tank in the desert, paint it desert colors?
Oh wait more complex... desert != shiny...
use flat paint.
got it!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Wake me up when we can get into the ladies changing rooms without getting bitch slapped.
You'll know when cloaking is really working when the monthly dupe of "cloaking, this time for real" stops showing up here.
Because they managed to cloak the article?
The better question is, can they fire while cloaked? I hear the Klingons made substantial advances in that area.
"Gee, if we had enough money, we could make your troops invisible, Mr. General Sir."
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Wouldn't pr0n constitute a complimentary image? Cuz I gotta tell ya with the right pr0n nearly everything around it disappears.
Everyone knows that a tachyon sub-space burst from the main deflector dish invariates the sublimated inverse proportional fields that all cloaking devices use.
Phase the array with multi-numinal values and any cloak in the perimeter will be dropped due to subversive nominal decay but only if you attune your tertiary sensing systems to compensate for the quadralinear flux.
This is all so simple, and I have to wonder about the credentials of /. editors that would post such elementary issues on this website.
I mean really, this is first trimester stuff that any recruit can do off the tops of their heads.
How hard can it be if even girls manage it?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Ummm...howzabout just hiding behind a tree or ducking...
Notquitecajun, will you stand up please. (gunshot)
This demonstrates the value of not being seen.
I am officially gone from
They should be working on the SEP field.
Hitchikers guide reference:
"The technology required to actually make something invisible is so complex and unreliable that it isn't worth the bother. The Somebody Else's Problem field is much simpler and more effective, and can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people's natural predisposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain."
You don't even need a battery. Just build it to look like a sink full of dirty dishes in a student household and no one will see it.
You do realize you will be blind, right?
Unless you poke some holes in your cloak, and then people will just see eyes floating in the air.
Actually, that seems like a fantastic idea.
Sign me up!
Scientists: "We've made an invisibility cloak that will make your soldiers vanish!"
General: "That's amazing, let's try these out."
Scientists: "Right, Here is one you can try, but if you want more then we need money... a lot of money."
General: "Sorry, the deals off, the soldiers say they can't see out of it when they're inside it."
Scientists: "Give us a few minutes."
[Obligatory view of shed with hammering and sawing noises]
Scientists: "Okay, how about your troops just hide behind it?"
Wile E. Coyote claims prior art.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
And here I always thought that explaining a joke was sure to ruin it.
This, then, shall be your test. To the engineer who can build her own invisibility cloak, I say that she is worthy of raiding the Sorority Girls' dorm. To all those who dare not face the challenge, their punishment shall be downloading pr0n.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
Scientists are looking in the wrong direction in this matter. Like in so many other breakthroughs, they just have to watch how nature does it. What in nature can be totaly invisble without any kind of complex technology or huge power consumption? Easy: keys.
You do realize you will be blind, right?
Unless you poke some holes in your cloak, and then people will just see eyes floating in the air.
Actually, that seems like a fantastic idea. Sign me up!
Okay so that's one invisibility cloak for...Mr Anonymous Coward.
Wow, are we really citing Harry Potter?
I understand that using feminine pronouns is the politically correct thing to do, but in the context of this sentence I think it's fair to assume that the engineer in question is most likely male.