New material takes 3D 'invisibility cloak' a step closer

These days air-fights are no longer the dog-fights of old, so making any plane invisible to the human eye is ..... Now we already know they can reduce radar signature, how about the heat, metal, electronic, etc signatures.

Radar is the long-range method of detection. A flight of completely radar-stealthed aircraft are going to advance much father without being detected than a flight of non-stealthed aircraft. If the flight is at night, that eliminates optical acquisition. The only remaining methods of detection are thermal and aural. Once detected, radar-guided missiles are not going to be able to lock-on and if the planes are high enough, even heat-seekers won't have a target to acquire. If you can get a fighter to come up behind them you could launch a heat seeker, but how do you vector the fighters to intercept? Making a plane completely invisible to radar would be all that is needed. Making it invisible in the visible spectrum is gross overkill.

why is this being developed at all? Invisibility will only be used for ill will.

When you are flying in an airplane and can be "seen" by radar it becomes a potential life and death issue for those flying military aircraft.

Civilian applications will come much later.

Got to ask how good will the 3D invisibility cloak work work against heat-seeking, etc missiles.

These days air-fights are no longer the dog-fights of old, so making any plane invisible to the human eye is ..... Now we already know they can reduce radar signature, how about the heat, metal, electronic, etc signatures.

Good technology but better suited for ground-troops that still rely mostly on visual identification.

I sure am glad that scientists find this to be more important than finding the cure for HIV, cancer, and other deadly diseases!

I sure am glad that scientists like physicists electrical engineers are NOT expected to be working on medical cures. Let's leave the medical stuff to the medical scientists, mmmKay?

why is this being developed at all? Invisibility will only be used for ill will.

Our tax dollars at work.

Quite so and whether one likes it or not military research in the US is responsible for countless numbers of various consumer and medical products and procedures that may never have been invented without their hard work and research.

I sure am glad that scientists find this to be more important than finding the cure for HIV, cancer, and other deadly diseases!

Medical research isnt the only research going on in the world today, sad to think that people want the world to stand still.

Why include an amateurish picture with this article that has nothing to do with the article? "Hey! If we move the camera while taking the picture of a plane, it will make the plane blurry and hard to focus on! Whoa! Cloak of invisibility!"

We often refer to things being "invisible" to radar when the more accurate description would be to say that they are not detectable by radar. This actually IS a significant step in the pursuit of 100% radar invisibility. Even the latest stealth aircraft have SOME radar return. The addition of this material would reduce the signatures even further.

Our tax dollars at work.

Yeah if it isnt invisible then it isnt invisible is it.

Strange they claim to have made somethign invisible when in reality it wasn't.

It's like saying they made the earth flat, which they didnt.

So it isn't invisible!

I sure am glad that scientists find this to be more important than finding the cure for HIV, cancer, and other deadly diseases!

I've seen magicians do better on TV.