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Fatal Flaw Discovered In Invisibility Cloaks
KentuckyFC writes "Carpet cloaks took the world by storm last year because they were the first devices to hide objects at optical frequencies. The idea is that a thin layer of dielectric material placed on a surface can make light look as if it is reflecting off the original surface. In other words, the layer is invisible and anything embedded within it is invisible too. This trick is like hiding something under a carpet, hence the name. Carpet cloaks are relatively easy to make because the dielectric material does not need to be specially constructed to steer light in special ways; physicists call this an isotropic material. Now a group at MIT has shown that isotropic carpet cloaks have a fatal flaw. When viewed at an angle, the carpets don't hide objects at all. Instead, they simply shift their position by about the same distance as they are high. So when viewed from an angle of 45 degrees, an object 0.2 units high is shifted to one side by a distance of 0.15 units, says the team. That's a serious limitation for carpet cloaks."
You can't see this post, oh wait, maybe you can...
At last, my sig is actually appropriate for a slashdot story!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
You could bump into the invisible object.
Better a D&D reference than another of the endless Harry Potter ones...
I can't see how they could work.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
They should be working on a "Somebody Else's Problem" field. I hear that this is much easier than trying to much around with physics.
No, the fatal flaw is that a cloaked object moving at warp speed emits a slight subspace variance. Adversaries performing an antiproton scan may also be a problem.
What if we modify the phase variance?
In the meantime, here's a close-up photo of a black hole.
in a theoretical device, i have been theoretically impressed
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What if we modify the phase variance?
yeah, as long as we randomly modulate the shield frequencies, reverse the polarity of the heisenberg compensators, and amplify the transporter buffers... we should be good to go. Earl Grey tea never tasted so good.
I'm sorry, my "Disable sigs" preference has completely cloaked your sig.
Unfortunately, every member of the search team is slacking off, assuming someone else is looking for it.
That depends. If the cloaks only affect visible light: No, the tracking missile would not miss you. Most missile guidance systems are still based on RADAR or IR, which do not use visible light.
I'm willing to take my chances that Natalie Portman does not have tracking missiles in her bedroom.
I would also assume that what you'd be hiding is so small as to render an invisibility cloak redundant.
What if we modify the phase variance?
yeah, as long as we randomly modulate the shield frequencies, reverse the polarity of the heisenberg compensators, and amplify the transporter buffers... we should be good to go. Earl Grey tea never tasted so good.
Now see here... If the polarity of anything is to be reversed, then clearly we should start with the neutron flow...
Bow-ties are cool.
This solution will never work.
No one has even suggested routing extra power to the main deflector array yet.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
No, no, no. You need to narrow the angular confinement beam.
It's a small thermal exhaust port.
Many Bothans died to bring us the information that farting while wearing an invisibility cloak will give away your location.
You are falling right into the trap. Of course they want you to look at this cloak so that you don't notice the other one. The story is clearly part of a larger misdirection strategy. . .
"Lost time is not found again."