Plan For Cloaking Device Unveiled 342
Robotron23 writes "The BBC is reporting that a plan for a cloaking device has been unveiled. The design is pioneered by Professor Sir John Pendry's team of scientists from the US and Britain. Proof of the ability of his invention could be ready in just 18 months time using radar testing. The method revolves around certain materials making light "flow" around the given object like water."
Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Useless for people (Score:5, Interesting)
So no invisible surveilance cameras or human beings- the light would miss the lens of the camera or the eye of the human and they'd be completely blind.
Re:Useless for people (Score:3, Insightful)
sure this does preclude some applications, but imagine as a camouflage for an armored vehicle. you just keep the window visible and/or camera lens. you just got yourself a nice nearly invisible tank, which is a thousand time better than what they have right now
Re:Useless for people (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Useless for people (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Useless for people (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Useless for people (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Useless for people (Score:5, Funny)
Just look for where the tank treads end.
Re:Useless for people (Score:3, Funny)
It's disguised to look like two homeless people fighting over a wheel of cheese...
Re:Useless for people (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Useless for people (Score:4, Interesting)
An enemy near enough to see two tiny camera pinholes in front of a cloaked M1 Abrams from the future should make his peace with God immediately.
Re:Useless for people (Score:3, Insightful)
Gee, what's that shimmer over there that sounds like a 110 db tank engine?
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Invisible overlords? Frankly, I can't see it happening.
Re:Obligatory (Score:2, Funny)
No? It was perfectly clear to me.
Re:Obligatory (Score:2, Insightful)
Tenuous at best (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tenuous at best (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Tenuous at best (Score:2)
Re:Tenuous at best (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Tenuous at best (Score:5, Funny)
Well, you start by throwing it through a jewellery store window.
Re:Tenuous at best (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Tenuous at best (Score:5, Funny)
Pretty incredible, eh?
Re:Tenuous at best (Score:3, Funny)
The Romulans... (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot's at it again (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Slashdot's at it again (Score:2)
Re:Slashdot's at it again (Score:3, Funny)
Ooops! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ooops! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Ooops! (Score:2, Funny)
It's not really a big deal... But you do have to wait for it to rain! [imageshack.us]
Good (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:2)
And battle.net is still full of people playing it. So what if the game is nearly 10 years old?
Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)
Don't you mean a Science Wessel?
Wessel.
Well, I thought it was funny...
Cloaking for fun and profit (Score:4, Interesting)
http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/projects/MED
My favorite one is the breakdancing guy in the bottom video.
Well, a bigger problem... (Score:2)
Re:Cloaking for fun and profit (Score:3, Insightful)
The US is used to enjoying air superiority, but other militaries might be interested in having an "instant camouflage screen" based on this idea over parked vehicles instead of messing around with nets and paint.
Maybe the Dutch/German Fennek [army-technology.com] vehicle can be adapted to sort of cloak itself from planes using its periscope.
Re:Cloaking for fun and profit (Score:2)
Re:Cloaking for fun and profit (Score:2)
Re:Cloaking for fun and profit (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cloaking for fun and profit (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Cloaking for fun and profit (Score:3, Interesting)
Further, if you then deform the screen or the surface wit
Doesn't this vialate our treaty with the Klingons? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Doesn't this vialate our treaty with the Klingo (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Doesn't this vialate our treaty with the Klingo (Score:3, Funny)
And no it doesn't, because we've got a couple of centuries until we actually sign it.
Imagine the market! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Imagine the market! (Score:2)
In theory, this post will be modded down... (Score:5, Interesting)
I RTFA, and frankly, it sounds like confirmation of the idea that mathamatics in general is WAY ahead of the other sciences. Things that are perfectly possible in theory are out of our grasp in the real world... right now, at least.
Even as a mathmatician, the fact that there's so much theory and so little actual DOING has me worried. There's a tiny flaw in the use of 'metamaterials' to make objects invisible... we don't HAVE metamaterials.
Though, it beats sticking my head in the sand by a long shot.
The split ends are horrible.
Re:In theory, this post will be modded down... (Score:2)
Even if the project merely proves that implementation is practically impossible, the spinoffs can be valuable.
Given that mankind is not (at this moment) capable of vast scientific leaps into the future, evolutionary improvements via theorizing seems like a valid
Re:In theory, this post will be modded down... (Score:5, Insightful)
I RTFA, and frankly, it sounds like confirmation of the idea that mathamatics in general is WAY ahead of the other sciences.
The thing you need to understand is that mathematics isn't a science. You can create lots and lots of perfectly valid mathematical theories, prove them true, and they don't have one tiny bit of them relevent to the real physical world. A great example of this is being able to cut a sphere in a certain way into an infinite amount of pieces, and reassemble it into a larger volume. It works great as far as the mathematics is concerned. But obviously you can't do that in the real world because real matter can't be infintely divided.
That's not to say that mathematics isn't usefull. Obviously it's used all the time to make models and predictions. My point is that there's no such thing as mathematics being way ahead of the other science, since mathematics doesn't really relate to the other science directly. As far as science is concerned, mathematics is just another tool in exploring science.
Re:In theory, this post will be modded down... (Score:2)
Re:In theory, this post will be modded down... (Score:2)
I fail to see the problem. The authors calculate the exact distribution of refraction indeces (they would have to vary) the cloak would have to have in order to work. They leave it to someone else to make a material with these properties. This distribution of labor is extreme
Re:In theory, this post will be modded down... (Score:2)
Re:In theory, this post will be modded down... (Score:2)
Re:In theory, this post will be modded down... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense -- water does not look like light. (Score:4, Insightful)
"A little way downstream, you'd never know that you'd put a pencil in the water - it's flowing smoothly again.
"Light doesn't do that of course, it hits the pencil and scatters. So you want to put a coating around the pencil that allows light to flow around it like water, in a nice, curved way."
The truth is, water scatters when hitting something, too. It just doesn't *matter*, because all particles of water look the same to us. So, if the water particle that would have been in the middle without the disruption ends up on the far right, it doesn't matter!
However, we are very, very good at telling different pieces of light apart. At best, this will provide very good camo, where pieces of color from the environment behind you show up on you instead. At worst, the disruption from light working in unexpected ways will make this "invisibility" be a very noticeable beacon. You know how your eyes always flick to something that moves (animated ads, anyone?) This would be like that.
Re:Nonsense -- water does not look like light. (Score:2)
Re:Nonsense -- water does not look like light. (Score:5, Informative)
"What you're trying to do is guide light around an object, but the art is to bend it such that it leaves the object in precisely the same way that it initially hits it. You have the illusion that there is nothing there"
Re:Nonsense -- water does not look like light. (Score:2)
We all know about the state of science reporting, though, so it's entirely possible the scientists are on the right track, and just the journalism was bad.
I actually think something like invisibility can be done someday, but it will involve electronics and computation. Instead of letting light pa
Re:Nonsense -- water does not look like light. (Score:2)
#2, how would you possibly account for the disrupted space? Wouldn't any human with good depth perception be able to tell that the "invisible" object is there simply by noticing that a piece of light is recessed? Sure, you could use this to walk across a desert with few interuptions, but in the more likely environments (urban landscapes and jungles) simply standing under a tree would give you away. The tree would appear to be split at the height of
Re:Nonsense -- water does not look like light. (Score:2)
Of course, if the light, like the article claims, would appear to come from the same angle and position as if no object had interferred, then there would be no
Re:Nonsense -- water does not look like light. (Score:2)
Re:Nonsense -- water does not look like light. (Score:2)
Re: My God! (Score:3, Funny)
My eyes instinctively ignore them these days if the browser doesn't block them to begin with.
Re:Nonsense -- water does not look like light. (Score:3, Informative)
At best, this would provide almost perfect camouflage. Bits of colour from the background would not show up on you; from whatever direction you look at it, you would see right through it. The light goes around the cloaked object, but there is no way for you to know that.
Of course, this only works over a restricted frequency range. In addition, since these metamaterials are usually based on resonant systems and are consequently strongly disp
From TFA (Score:2)
Kinda like, say, glass changes the direction of light?
If it bleeds we can kill it (Score:3, Funny)
Research abstracts (Score:3, Informative)
Controlling Electromagnetic Fields [sciencemag.org]
J. B. Pendry, D. Schurig, D. R. Smith
Using the freedom of design that metamaterials provide, we show how electromagnetic fields can be redirected at will and propose a design strategy. The conserved fields--electric displacement field D, magnetic induction field B, and Poynting vector S--are all displaced in a consistent manner. A simple illustration is given of the cloaking of a proscribed volume of space to exclude completely all electromagnetic fields. Our work has relevance to exotic lens design and to the cloaking of objects from electromagnetic fields.
Optical Conformal Mapping [sciencemag.org]
Ulf Leonhardt
An invisibility device should guide light around an object as if nothing were there, regardless of where the light comes from. Ideal invisibility devices are impossible due to the wave nature of light. This paper develops a general recipe for the design of media that create perfect invisibility within the accuracy of geometrical optics. The imperfections of invisibility can be made arbitrarily small to hide objects that are much larger than the wavelength. Using modern metamaterials, practical demonstrations of such devices may be possible. The method developed here can be also applied to escape detection by other electromagnetic waves or sound.
Unfortunately, I don't seem to have access to the full papers.
Re:Research abstracts (Score:2)
Cloaking Device (Score:2)
From what I can tell, (Score:2)
What frequencies of light (Score:2)
useful for what? (Score:3, Interesting)
A cloaking device? (Score:5, Funny)
Which variety? (Score:2)
If it's the Federation cloak, I want nothing to do with it.
LK
ah, no way this will "cloak" (Score:3, Interesting)
It's very unlikely this development will 'cloak" anything.
Small matter of "index of refraction".
You'll note the picture in the article shows light rays hitting the object "head-on". What happens to rays that hit at an angle? Even if they exit at the same angle, are they exiting along the same axis, or displaced? The article doesnt say.
Also most substances have significant reflection at each air-substance boundary-- how will this device handle that issue?
Nice try, but still quite a long way from making an object "invisible".
Re:Government Uses (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Government Uses (Score:2)
Re:Maybe, maybe not (Score:2)
Re:maths? (Score:2)
Re:maths? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:maths? (Score:2)
US: "sports"
UK: "sport"
And in this case as well, the Canadian usage tends towards the American usage.
Re:maths? (Score:2)
Not exactly what they meant.
Re:maths? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Radar? (Score:4, Interesting)
abet harder to set up a passive radar system but not imposable..
when you send out the radar wave and look for what bounces back that is active.. when you have something on the other side of your target looking for that wave - that is passive.
if you setup two towers and the broadcast to each other and you fly between them they can tell even if they can see it actively... if you set up a perimeter of them say 3-4-5 or more and they all talk back and forth
with this type of tech the item would be invisible to active and passive radar.. although I bet it would show some type of ghosting effect for areas near it via passive scan.. it would be very hard to track.
Re:Radar? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Radar? (Score:2)
the B2 absorbes it
Re:Radar? (Score:2)
Seriously though, there are bigger heat signatures to worry about than the RF's conversion to heat, namely, the heat generated by moving through the air at supersonic speeds, and the exhaust gases. They have s
Re:Radar? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Radar? (Score:2)
Imagine retuning your RADAR for small objects; every bullet in the sky, every missile, every plane, and at least some atmospherics would light up like the Fourth of July. Now, it'd be possible if you have a very complex RADAR system with a computer attached that aided in target acquisition, but even designing a system that sophisticated to take out one class of aircraft will likely blow your defense budget tha
Re:Radar? (Score:2)
Re:Radar? (Score:2)
Craft like the stealth bomber work by scattering radar signals so they return almost any which way but back to the sender, making them appear a lot smaller than they really are. If there were something in the shadow of its profile, you wouldn't see that either. You would get no significant "ping" from your radar signal.
This theory, if it works and proves practical, would change things so you would get no reflection off the bomber, but you would see the object behind it just the same as if the cr
Re:Radar? (Score:2)
Re:Harry Potter Bull$4it (Score:2)
I feel your pain... but whether termed SF or not, I haven't read an
Re:Metamaterials (Score:3, Informative)
Re:One minor problem (Score:2)
Re:Obligatory Star Trek reference (Score:2, Funny)