WeAreTheKey

I already have my invisibility cloak preordered.


Full Article: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... cloak.html

Invisibility cloaks may be a bit closer to reality, researchers say, thanks to the development of two new materials that are the first to bend visible light the "wrong" way in three dimensions.

The so-called metamaterials are artificial composites designed to manipulate light in ways that natural materials can't—in these cases by refracting it backward. (Related: "The Power of Light" in National Geographic magazine.)

If their cloaking capabilities are fully realized, metamaterials could make an object invisible by bending light waves so that they curve around the object and then reconnect, seemingly unaltered, on the other side—similar to the way water flows around a boulder.

"Of course cloaking captures everybody's attention, but these papers aren't [just] about cloaking," said Xiang Zhang, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and head of the research teams publishing related papers in two different journals this week.

"[The studies] are about the ability to engineer these material properties that never exist in nature. With that ability one can do many things, and cloaking is only one of them."

Such materials could also boost the power of microchips and antennas and allow the creation of "superlenses" that could image objects smaller than the wavelength of light, the study authors report.

The first image that came to my mind was a teenage boy in the girl's locker room. How sick am I?

But it seems the military/espionage implications are even more heavy than those of pervy teenage pranks.

And how did they actually come about thinking about this??????(to the extent of pulling it off?)

Seriously if there are scientists that can pull off or even come to a starting point with theorizing invisiblity.. where the hell are they??? Where do you become friends with people like that??? If people can be that smart, they need to be paraded around.. not us all focusing on how many times fergie pissed her pants on stage....Jesus, this is interesting and terrifying all in one...

Did cern ever make that black hole yet?


Are we seconds from contact with the next door dimension?


OMG..

How could they NOT come about thinking about this?
Invisibility has been a goal of humanity every since it was first conceived of.

Keep in mind, this is a material, like a cloth, that bends light around it, it's not some hyper-x-ray beam-energy-force field or anything like that. And so far, it's only on the microscopic scale. They don't have any large versions yet. Still a few more years away from that.

It's actually quite terrifying to imagine the implications.

No no no.. not how could they but where the hell did they START from...

it just seems so far from where my mind could even theorize.. its so.. abstract and scientific.. the concept of invisiblity is like flight to humans..

I understand the awesomeness that humans could even figure out bits of the equation to finding out how to begin creating invisiblitiy..

It would be interesting to be in the mind of one would could theorize such grandeur..

On a side note though.. the whole concept is hard to wrap my mind around and at the same time terrifying.. the shear power that would come from invisiblity.. dangerous.. very dangerous... on so many applications.. and god only knows what the biological effects of becoming invisible as a living creature... who knows..

but none the less very interesting...

and frankly i have suspiscions on where they got this know how of starting from .. was it some genius they have locked up somewhere or.....Aliens ???? whoooooh...

Seriously though.. you never know we truely do know nothing for sure.

Did you read the article?!

The only really difficult part about it is being able to manufacture the materials on a large scale so they could use it in large-scale applications.

The scientific concepts behind it aren't very "complex" or difficult to understand. We bend light all the time, with drinking glasses, and mirrors and crystals etc... the only challenge is to get light to 'go around' something instead of bouncing off of it.
Much like how laser is a form of light, and fiber-optic cables can contain it and direct it wherever they want, like those color-changing fiber optic flower things at Spencers.

It's the same idea, only with normal light "bent around" an object, so you're not actually seeing through something, you're technically seeing around it, it just LOOKS like you're seeing through it.
So if I wore a shirt made out of this and you stood in front of me, the light coming from the wall behind me would hit my back, bend around the side of my shirt (through the fancy material) and exit through the front to hit your eyes, making you think you are just looking at the wall.

Even if they perfect this material, the light would have to travel a little further by going around something, so it may make things look slightly closer/further away.... I think.... ?!!?

I confused myself.