Biggles7268 Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5016068.stm esearchers in the US and Britain have unveiled their blueprints for building a cloaking device. So far, cloaking has been confined to science fiction; in Star Trek it is used to render spacecraft invisible. Professor Sir John Pendry says a simple demonstration model that could work for radar might be possible within 18 months' time. Two separate teams, including Professor Pendry's, have outlined ways to cloak objects in the journal Science. These research papers present the maths required to verify that the concept could work. But developing an invisibility cloak is likely to pose significant challenges. Both groups propose methods using the unusual properties of so-called "metamaterials" to build a cloak. These metamaterials can be designed to induce a desired change in the direction of electromagnetic waves, such as light. This is done by tinkering with the nano-scale structure of the metamaterial, not by altering its chemistry. Light flow John Pendry's team suggest that by enveloping an object in a metamaterial cloak, light waves can be made to flow around the object in the same way that water would do so. "Water behaves a little differently to light. If you put a pencil in water that's moving, the water naturally flows around the pencil. When it gets to the other side, the water closes up," Professor Pendry told the BBC. "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 work provides a mathematical "recipe" for bending light waves in such a way as to achieve a desired cloaking effect. John Pendry, along with colleagues David Smith and David Schurig at Duke University in North Carolina, US, have been testing suitable metamaterials for the device they plan to build. This, Sir John explained, would consist of a sphere or cylinder wrapped in a sheath of metamaterial which could cloak it from radio waves. "It's not tremendously fancy, but that for us would be quite an achievement," he told the BBC News website. Professor Ulf Leonhardt, author of another cloaking paper in Science, described the effect for light as a "mirage". "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," he told the BBC's Science in Action programme. The work could have uses in military stealth technology - but engineers have not yet created the materials that could be used to cloak an aircraft or a tank, John Pendry explains. Professor Pendry's research has been supported by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa). Several other scientific teams have proposed ideas for cloaking devices. One theoretical paper proposed using a material known as a superlens to cancel out light being scattered from an object. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/scie...ure/5016068.stm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amanda Posted May 26, 2006 Share Posted May 26, 2006 Cool article Biggles! Amazing, huh? It just goes to show that scienc fiction is always one step ahead of science. :wink: I remember when I was young, cell phones and microwave ovens were science fiction too. My mother said it was that way about a science fiction show called Flash Gordon, when she was young, too. It seems that I always think reading science fiction is a waste of time, and I don't know why I have a tendency to think that way. It really seems to be the cutting edge of science! Thanks for sharing this article. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjacksonRIAB Posted May 28, 2006 Share Posted May 28, 2006 Yeah, that fucking owns. But like all complicated defenses, they will be trivally easy to circumvent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Padreko Posted May 28, 2006 Share Posted May 28, 2006 I read about this on CNN and if they can pull it off I think this could be revolutionary. Imagine the possibilities of people can walk around invisible... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amanda Posted May 28, 2006 Share Posted May 28, 2006 I read about this on CNN and if they can pull it off I think this could be revolutionary. Imagine the possibilities of people can walk around invisible... I've heard that magicians, like David Copperfield, can produce illusions that very, very large objects can appear to be invisible! I wonder if these magicians are working with governmental agencies too. It seems like 'magic' has become quite a 'scientific' art. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manta Posted May 28, 2006 Share Posted May 28, 2006 I can imagine it will take a long time for it to perfectly move light around it. FOr the forseeable future all we can expect is objects looking like distorted glass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunar Shadow Posted May 28, 2006 Share Posted May 28, 2006 Yeah I heard about this last week I am fucking excited abou this.... its kinda like the active camo on Halo This is gonna kick ass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fweethawt Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 its kinda like the active camo on Halo Now all we need is an entire army of Spartans in their MJOLNIR armor, and we're all set. Volunteers, anyone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Helmet Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 The problem with this technology is that since the properties or the coating will be very dependant on it's composition and layering it will probably be only working for only a very narrow band of wavelength. So don't expect people walking invisibly around for a while. At least not until they are able to build multi-layered or adaptive coatings that will allow a larger band of wavelength to flow inside of it and that will be thin and light enough to be worn or mounted. It's a huge step, we haven't even build one working device yet but who knows... maybe in a hundred years they'll have invisible units (at least in radar) flying around, it'd be even better than the F-117 because its coating is only designed to absorb radar energy and can wear off if subjected to bad weather. What I imagine is those guys from Battlefield 2142 with the cloaking and explosive charges that will be able to sneak upon mech warriors and blow them to bits. Now THAT would be awesome. But we'll have to sit down and do a lot of research before we get any of this. Better get to work now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amanda Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 What I imagine is those guys from Battlefield 2142 with the cloaking and explosive charges that will be able to sneak upon mech warriors and blow them to bits. Now THAT would be awesome. But we'll have to sit down and do a lot of research before we get any of this. Better get to work now! Dark Helmet, I hope that just the knowledge of our ability to have this will be enough to deter any necessary action in this range. I like the philosophy against terrorist, to talk softly, but carry a big stick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Helmet Posted May 30, 2006 Share Posted May 30, 2006 What I imagine is those guys from Battlefield 2142 with the cloaking and explosive charges that will be able to sneak upon mech warriors and blow them to bits. Now THAT would be awesome. But we'll have to sit down and do a lot of research before we get any of this. Better get to work now! Dark Helmet, I hope that just the knowledge of our ability to have this will be enough to deter any necessary action in this range. I like the philosophy against terrorist, to talk softly, but carry a big stick. I think the only reason it might really work is because we're faced with a disorganized network of operators who don't have the resources to develop this technology. What I think would likely happen if a country were to get such a cloaking technology would be a weapon race amongst capable nations to whom would be able to design the most efficient cloaking and the best detectors to invalidate the other's cloaking. And then it's just a matter of time before it makes its way on the black market and in the hands of whoever is able to pay the price... it's happened before so I don't really expect it to be different the next time. Or maybe I'm just too cynical, but it seems to me like that's the way it always works these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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