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#217932 08/14/08 08:15 PM
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,166
Pulitzer
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Pulitzer
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 3,166
I just found this on the 'net. rotflol

Invisibility Cloak


Here's what it says:

Invisibility Cloak on the Horizon, Scientists Say
By Steven Musil, CNET news.com

Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that will render people and other objects invisible.

Researchers say they can redirect light around 3-D objects using metamaterials--artificially engineered structures created at a nano scale that contain optical properties not found in nature, according to an Associated Press report.

People see objects as a result of the light reflecting or scattering off them. This new mixture of materials has "negative refractive" properties that keep light from being absorbed or reflected by the object, allowing only the light from behind the object to be seen. Essentially, the material bends visible light in a way that eliminates the creation of reflections or shadows in much the way water flows around a stone.

The findings, to be released later this week in Nature and Science, were made by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang. The research, which was funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation's Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center, could have broad applications, including for the military.

But the materials work in limited wavelengths, so they won't be used to hide buildings from satellites, said Jason Valentine, who is a co-author of one of the papers.

"We are not actually cloaking anything," Valentine told Reuters. While the Harry Potter series of books and films has made the idea of a personal "invisibility cloak" popular, he says, "I don't think we have to worry about invisible people walking around any time soon. To be honest, we are just at the beginning of doing anything like that."

~~~~~

Next thing you know there are going to be flying aliens around...


~~Even heroes have the right to dream.~~
#217933 08/14/08 10:00 PM
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 273
Hack from Nowheresville
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Hack from Nowheresville
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 273
Hmmm.. I was wondering how that research was going. I did encounter an article on this technology a year or so ago where they were working on this for military purposes but they had had limited success.

You almost have to wonder if fiction is providing the ideas on which modern society strives to invent.... I guess you could say society has been doing that since Arthur C Clarke...

But I'd pay good money to meet a man who could fly under his own power just for the curiosity factor. Wouldn't you?


"He's my best friend, best of all best friends
Do you have a best friend too
It tickles in my tummy
He's so Yummy Yummy
Hey you should get a best friend too" - Toy Box

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