Scientists Closer To Invisibility Cloak 308
Aviran was one of many readers to submit news of a just-announced development in the ongoing quest to develop a working invisibility cloak, writing: "Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible. Researchers have demonstrated for the first time they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects. Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects" Reader bensafrickingenius adds a link to coverage at the Times Online, and notes that "the world's two leading scientific journals, Science and Nature, are expected to report the results this week." Tjeerd adds a link to a Reuters' story carried by Scientific American.
I would have claimed 1st (Score:5, Funny)
I would have claimed 1st, but someone appears to be cloaked.
Re:I would have claimed 1st (Score:5, Funny)
His name was Robert Paulson. [imdb.com]
There fixed that for you.
Re:I do claim 1st (Score:5, Funny)
Don't know about the patent, but I can claim prior art. I have an invisible cloak that I wear all the time at home. I used to wear it in public, but kept getting arrested.
Is there an emperor out there looking for an outfit for a parade? I have a spare that I'm willing to sell.
Currently under "Cliche Movie Plot" (CPM) testing (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd like to visit a few banks wearing this gizmo.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Currently under "Cliche Movie Plot" (CPM) testi (Score:5, Insightful)
I know everyone is making with the jokes,but I for one really don't like the idea of this. Yet again,we have scientists seeing if they CAN do something,rather than if they SHOULD do something. As aggressive as the US has been lately,does anyone really want gunships,fighter jets,and whole squads of special forces rendered invisible?
Hear hear! Perhaps we should revise the Geneva convention. From now on, all snipers must jump up and down waving their arms and yelling "Look at me" before taking their shot. All submarines must have PA systems that continually blast Rick Astley music when they're submerged. All spy drones must broadcast Flight of the Valkyries when on a mission.
I understand your point but, as long as the world has weapons, governments will be spending money on improving them (range/cloaking/accuracy/flexibility/etc.) If you go to the government leaders who control weapons funding and ask them "Should this weapon be improved?", once they're done laughing the answer will certainly be "Yes." And, assuming that this product would be fielded for military use as you imply, it would be seen as a measure to both increase our effectiveness on the battlefield and protect our troops. That would change the government's answer from "Yes" to "Hell yes." Right? Wrong? Doesn't matter - just the world we live in.
Re:Currently under "Cliche Movie Plot" (CPM) testi (Score:5, Insightful)
While we are limiting ourselves from creating an invisibility cloak do we have to ban warfare at night and stealth aircraft? I mean, those things just aren't fair. In fact let's get rid of guns, camouflage, body armor, aircraft, and submarines. We can settle things with a boxing match. Technological advances in warfare has continued for centuries now. We've been down this path before with other technology but I wouldn't be too worried. Just as devices like these are created others are created to defeat them. It is the natural progression of weapons.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>Just as devices like these are created others are created to defeat them. It is the natural progression of weapons.
You mean tools, not weapons. Many things that have potential use as weapons have non-weapon uses as well. It's only a weapon when it's used as one. Otherwise it's a tool. A knife is a tool when you use it to slice bread.
Re:Currently under "Cliche Movie Plot" (CPM) testi (Score:5, Funny)
That's easy. Point your AK-47 at someone else and say "Slice that loaf of bread."
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Currently under "Cliche Movie Plot" (CPM) testi (Score:5, Insightful)
Even a perfect optical cloak would still be detectable in many ways. Bear in mind that wearing a perfect optical cloak will render you blind. This means you'll have to navigate using other methods. You could wear infrared goggles, but that means you're visible in infrared light and therefore detectable. You could make yourself invisible to all wavelengths, perhaps, and then navigate by sonar. A microphone will pick that up easily enough. Likewise radar. You could, I suppose, navigate via a remote camera signal that displays your surroundings on a screen located inside the cloaking device. That would be disorienting but one could probably train for it or use a VR representation of your surroundings. Assuming, then, that you can obfuscate the video signal and avoid emitting any light yourself, then you'll be foiled by a cheap fog curtain [rogergeorge.com] at the entrance of a building. Or, if you want to be more practical about it, a metal detector. If the target of your assassination attempt is outdoors, you'd best hope that there's no precipitation, smoke, smog, or fog. And you won't be able just to point and shoot, either. Remember, you're blind.
Even assuming a partial optical cloak that lets you be invisible "enough" (perhaps in shadows) and still see somehow, you'll still be detectable. If this technology becomes available, technology to defeat it will, too. Off the top of my head... a sonar or radar (preferably sonar, I think humans are transparent to radar) system that compares the visual or infrared spectrum with the echos. You probably wouldn't even need a human to operate it; a computer could simply find the discrepancies between the images and report them. A detection system like this would probably be affordable even to smaller nations. If you wanted to get really paranoid, you could even have the computer automatically target human-shaped echo discrepancies and fire long range or remote tasers at them, killing the cloak as soon as it is spotted.
Or, save yourselves all the trouble, sprinkle sand everywhere and just watch for footprints. Or hold all public events in the middle of huge, 2-inch deep lakes.
Re:Currently under "Cliche Movie Plot" (CPM) testi (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think so. One may absorb some light without having to reflect any.
Re:Currently under "Cliche Movie Plot" (CPM) testi (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you'd be a dark spot, or two dark eye shaped spots.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the sensitivity of passive night-vision technology, I doubt the light you need to get a useful picture would be missed by anyone looking at you. If it was enough for the human eye to detect it'd still probably only be noticeable if you stood in front of a solid white wall, and even then it might look like a smudge.
Re: (Score:2)
You could apply this opinion to pretty much any type of military technology that has ever been created. Of course people can use this technology to do bad things, and they probably will. However, if there is a demand for such technology, and it's scientifically possible to create such technology, then someone or some organization will eventually create it. I'd rather we come up with this technology first before some other country where it might be more likely to end up in the hands of terrorists. Also,
Re:Currently under "Cliche Movie Plot" (CPM) testi (Score:4, Insightful)
Resistance to an idea won't prevent its reality.
This technology will ultimately be available, and mankind will never learn to cope with it until it is a reality.
If we hadn't pushed so hard for nuclear weapons (which have killed far far fewer people than, say, firebombs or religion), we wouldn't have had the cleanest safest source of energy on the planet as soon as we did. (Note: windmills are a joke, and solar panels don't last nearly long enough for their initial cost.)
If only there were a way to make some dastardly weapon out of geothermal power...
whole squads of.. (Score:3, Funny)
whole squads of special forces rendered invisible
imagine whole squads of geeks rendered invisible around hot women!
oh wait.. n/m ;)
Science (Score:3, Interesting)
Raw science should not be bound by vague concepts of potential unethical use of discoveries.
If we followed that idea we would ( at best ) still be sitting in a dark cold gloomy cave. Wondering if we get to eat tonight, or be eaten instead.
Re:The reverse scenario might be more to your liki (Score:2)
Once this technology is available it will become available to everybody, good guys and bad guys. But it will probably help insurgents and guerilla fighters more than large conventional armies.
I suppose because the technology is designed with the sole aim of deception it's difficult to think of non-militray or non-criminal uses, but maybe I just haven't seen enough bad sci-fi.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
correction: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:correction: (Score:5, Funny)
The fact that this is modded insightful is frightening in itself.
Re:correction: (Score:4, Funny)
Better than "+1 Hot".
arms race (Score:5, Funny)
And the locker room will be full of girls wearing invisibility cloaks.
Pictures? (Score:5, Funny)
At first I was going to complain about the lack of pictures, but then I realized they wouldn't be too revealing anyway.
Re:Pictures? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pictures? (Score:5, Funny)
Has it occured to anyone that once you take the cloak off you had better not set it down?
It really adds a whole new level to losing your keys if you set the cloak on them by mistake.
On a brighter note voyeurism just got easier..
Re:Pictures? (Score:5, Funny)
Mr. Nesbitt has learnt the first lesson of not being seen... not to stand up. However, he has chosen a very obvious piece of cover.
Re:Pictures? (Score:4, Funny)
Don't forget the film demonstration:
This is Mr Lambert of Lewton. He cannot be seen. Mr Lambert, will you remove your invisibility cloak please? (gunshot and scream)
This demonstrates the value of not being seen.
Re: (Score:2)
I can also do a polar bear in a snowstorm -
*whew* I'm exhausted. That'll be $50 please.
Re: (Score:2)
Here ya go (hands you a blank slip of paper)... what, don't look at me like that. It's printed in invisible ink.
Science writing at its finest (Score:5, Funny)
Very thin 2D objects eh? Nice.
Re:Science writing at its finest (Score:5, Funny)
It has trouble with very thick 2D objects.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What about very short but thick 2D objects?
Re: (Score:2)
As long as they aren't very long.
Re:A better title for the article (Score:2)
Considering the relationship between Berkley California and the Military, I dont know why UoB keeps making these types of break throughs. If UoB fashioned itself as a "rape victim" and cast the military as "the rapist" (not therapist) this could be called:
"Rape victim makes a better date rape drug."
If your following along this far, FSM bless you.
And then... (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
If anything, it will be easy to spot, as humans pick out reflections and flashes, meaning that this would probably draw more attention than good camouflage.
I dunno.. seems pretty effective in UT.
MIT (Score:2)
I thought I remember reading on Slashdot how some MIT guys already did a proof-of-concept on this a while back.
Re:MIT (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Fibre optics would only work in one direction.
War Application (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:War Application (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I really hope that our wars aren't fought like Crysis in the future. The self-destruct feature probably makes sense for military use (and the idea of jumping fifty feet is pretty awesome), but I'd rather not deal with the frozen aliens.
Re:War Application (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
A way for the person underneath the cloak to see would be to have the cloak transparent to radio waves, and have a tiny robotic camera somewhere nearby transmitting pictures to a receiver the cloaked person holds.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would it be impossible to use light amplification and split the light into "inside" and "outside" parts. That way, for the cost of a little energy you can see and not be seen.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
What exactly do you have against goats, their herders, and freedom fighters (whether rightly or wrongly called such)?
Re: (Score:2)
Nature's Abstract (Score:5, Informative)
"the world's two leading scientific journals, Science and Nature, are expected to report the results this week."
You can find the Nature abstract here [nature.com]. And if you have a subscription, you can read the full research and see the data they collected from experiments.
According to the Ars Technica article on this [arstechnica.com], the Science link will be here [doi.org].
There seems to be a few more papers and articles on this but if you're interested you can search for optical metamaterials with negative refractive indexes.
enage cloaking device (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:enage cloaking device (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:enage cloaking device (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:enage cloaking device (Score:4, Informative)
I had to look up Snell's law quick, which doesn't mention wavelength as being a factor (I thought that the refective effects might vary according to wavelength), but then i noticed this at the bottom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snell's_law [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersion_(optics) [wikipedia.org]
I would guess that any optical camoflauge technique has a function of input wavelength vs. camoflauge effectiveness, and that wavelenghths sufficiently on either side of "visible" would likely fall off of the effectiveness plateau.
Re: (Score:2)
Why? Because IR (or UV, or radio, or gamma rays, etc.) have different wavelengths than visible light. Now, IANAInvisibilityCloakEngineer, but I can guess that the cloak only works at specific tuned frequencies/wavelengths - in this case, those of visible light. The same technology might/should work for other wavelengths, if designed to do that, but then might not cloak the visible spectrum. (But, yes, an IR cloak for nighttime operations would be beneficial.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
First we need to rembeer that light, infra-red, ultra violet and radar (among others) are just different wavelengths of electromagnetic waves. So the prisiple is the same but one "cloack" technology may be effective for some wavelengts but not others.
I'm just going to call it all emw for now.
To be invisible one need to take care of four things.
1. Not reflecting any emw from any emw-source to the sensor/observer.
2. Not to emit any emw to the sensor/
Old "news". Nothing to see here.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This was posted in Pharyngula yesterday. The usual prescient commenters noted that nowhere on the researchers' pages was there active speculation about an "invisibility cloak", and it was probably just some reporters going wacky over the possibilities. http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/08/get_your_invisibility_cloak_he.php [scienceblogs.com]
Re:Old "news". Nothing to see here.... (Score:4, Informative)
"We are not actually cloaking anything," Valentine said in a telephone interview. "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."
So, while they aren't saying 'this will become an invisibility cloak', to say that there is no active speculation about applying visible light metamaterials as a cloak is wrong. Article also ends with comment on how these would make superior lens for microscopes.
Re: (Score:2)
You're right -- I was too hyperbolic in my skepticism. I'm just tired of the wild speculations, just about every year since Pendry et. al started up Veselago's prognotication in earnest using metamaterials. The press has a field day several times a year, and the scientists either haven't said anything serious about cloaking technology, or they're feeding the speculation just for fun. It's been done to death.
Re: (Score:2)
There probably isn't much speculation amongst the scientists and engineers about applying it as an invisibility cloak (at least outside of the context of free publicity and pitching for Congressional pork money) because it most likely would not be effective, at least in the sense most of the breathless SF fanboys around here think. I don't think that you'll be able to construct something that can bend a continuous spectrum, such as sunlight. Single frequencies, sure. The Nature abstract mentions a "broad
Cloak of Invisibility (Score:2, Funny)
Look over there, a cloaked eye-catching headline (Score:5, Informative)
This story has popped up here and there in the press today, but when I actually RTFA the actual breakthrough is negative refractive index materials, in the visible spectrum.
The application is not invisible tanks and infantry, but microscopy.
See here for photoshopped image that enhances the misleading headline http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7553061.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
That's not actually photoshopped, its for a different technology where they can project "3D" images onto a surface and it will appear to be far away. Lots of tiny glass beads and whatnot. If i drape you in that stuff and take a projector and project a car onto you, if there is the same car behind you, you will be camoflaged. The only downside is that you need all of these projectors and whatnot to project a background image.
Think Solid Snakes octocamo meets a movie theater.
Re: (Score:2)
Regardless of whether what you described is possible, I guarantee that picture was photoshopped. It's a very rudimentary job: just do an edge-detect on the picture of the guy and then layer it over the background picture with the correct layer mode (additive, I'm thinking).
Oh, and the New York Times' cover would have been so much cooler if they'd used this technology [tinypic.com].
News Flash! (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Really. All you have to do to hide a 2d object is keep the edge pointed at the observer. Well, the very thin ones anyway. I don't know how well that would work with a thick one.
Re: (Score:2)
Four if you count time as a dimension. String theory [wikipedia.org] posits that there are in fact eleven dimensions.
Woot! (Score:5, Funny)
I dunno about this claim. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Not only does the emperor wear no clothes. In fact, there is no emperor!
Also, the usual slashdot saying "nothing to see here, please move along" seems to apply more than ever.
Treaty of Algeron (Score:2)
very thin 2D object (Score:2, Funny)
WTF is a thin two-dimensional object? (Score:2)
"thin two-dimensional objects" - hmmm. My oxymoron detector is going off!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Um, no, "thin" is a word which expresses a measurement in the third dimension. 2D objects (which don't exist in our 3D world, but we're talking about theoretical ones) don't have a third dimension. Calling a 2D object "thin" makes as much sense as watching a painting for 90 minutes and then complaining that there was no action and it lacked a plot.
I can see the use for one of these (Score:4, Insightful)
To get my laptop past US customs without having it 'confiscated'...
Seriously though - how long do you think until any tech like this is restricted to military use only ? If you actually do achieve human-level visible-spectrum invisibility (even if you have to move very slowly to avoid being caught by reflection shifts and such and have to avoid anybody with IR) - it will be banned for civilian use like a shot. The people who want it for 'hunting purposes' will kick up a fuss but we couldn't take the risk of an invisible man sneaking into the white house and farting on the president's desk now could we ?
Okay... I tried to become serious but I failed... let's try this again:
Considering the real security implications of true invisibility from the naked eye - do you think it will be banned/restricted ? Do you think it SHOULD be banned or restricted ?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I think the current laws would work just fine in restricting it to legal usage only. If someone is caught using it to break a law, they get punished for whatever illegal act they committed.
What's next, banning imaginary friends?
Invisibility cloak (Score:5, Funny)
I'll believe it when I see it.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Here is a picture of the cloak [google.com] found on Google Image search. Believe it now?
Actually it was invented several months ago... (Score:5, Funny)
now they just can't find the blasted thing.
A step closer (Score:2)
...out of how many?
Perhaps it's grant renewal time...
rj
Dyson sphere? (Score:2)
Now we know where all that matter is...
Invisible? Not quite, I think (Score:2, Insightful)
Being able to 'bend' light around an object is only a minor part of invisibility, I think - an object isn't invisible unless you can't see it in any way. The problem is that there is no guarantee that the light will appear to have followed a straight line through the 'invisible' object, as far as I can see, so there will be a visible distortion of the background.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm... while this could pose a problem in certain situations, for most camouflage uses it wouldn't be too critical a limitation. I don't really see much danger of someone detecting your presence by noticing that the sand looks distorted.
Re:Invisible? Not quite, I think (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the light gets bent around it perfectly. The light coming in from the background enters the metamaterial, is bent around to the other side of the object and exits it just as if it had passed through the area enclosed by the metamaterial without any obstacles. Ideally, there is no way that an observer could tell the difference with the exception of knowing the time of travel. The path through the metamaterial is longer than that of the perceived path. I would think that if the shrouded object was in front of a large reflector of a known distance from a radar like source, then the added delay in the signal would add a very small amount of distance to the location of the reflector. An astute observer with very good equipment may notice a change in the position of the radar returns as a cloaked object crosses through. There are further exceptions that are introduced the more you start to use the theory in practice, the biggest problem being that the current solutions would require that an object be encased in a spherical shell of metamaterial, not the most convenient situation. In addition, the current crop of metamaterials have very small bandwidths, making the cloaked object perceptible to other detection methods. If you cloaked for the visible (and actually could cover the entire visible region) then you would probably be easily picked up via radar or infrared imaging.
Clarke's Law at work? (Score:2)
And just last week, we had the "Pensieve" thing-y from IBM.
When are the flying broomsticks coming?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
When are the flying broomsticks coming?
I see you've not met my ex-wife.
How, exactly, will they sew the cloaks? (Score:2)
Ever try making things out of invisible material?
ASK SLASHDOT (Score:2)
Apparently my car has an invisibility cloak, because runners continually jog out in the street in front of it, jaywalkers stroll right into its path, and people constantly pull out right in front of me, even running stop signs and red lights to do it.
The on/off switch itself is apparently cloaked, because I can't find it. I bought the car used, so I have no user manual (I had it a year before I found out how to make it stop honking when the "panic" button gets pressed accidentally; a cop showed me).
As well
"hard to see" cloak (Score:2)
I think this would just be difficult to detect.
SOLDIER ONE: "I think there's someone in one of them invisibility cloaks over there."
SOLDIER TWO: "Send a couple dozen rounds into those bushes and see if you're right."
The best use would (probably) be to hide the bottom of an aircraft.
I just sold one of these (Score:3, Funny)
I have another one, but I put it down somewhere and now I can't find it.
Re: (Score:2)
>This technology could make an invisible cloak, not an invisibility cloak. You could see right through the cloak, at the person wearing it.
Eerm... we already HAVE that ! - Just use something transparent !
We do not (yet) have anything that can do full transparency but some materials come remarkably close. It doesn't fit they story anyway. Why would you bend light to get transparency when simple letting it through will do the same job ?
So how can you make a person invisible ? Well you could make him transl
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A true invisibility cloak must gather every incident photon and then re-emit it out the other side of the cloak as if it had passed through the wearer.
The whole point of the negative index of refraction is the ability to do just that. We're obviously a long way from doing it, but scientists are beginning to see a glimmer of hope.
Re:First - talk about "Dup, dup, dup, Dup of Earl. (Score:3, Informative)