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© Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.Science closing in on cloak of invisibility
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EurajReturns
Certainly sounds more efficient than the little image relay system.
http://www.tecfre.com/i-can-be-invisible-invisibility-cloak/
Good_Jorb
I would imagine the other application would be for things like SWAT, counter-terrorism and change rooms.
saborichan
Fun as it sounds, it certainly has plenty of awful possibilities.
Betting
"Dual applications, military and what? Fashion?".
My guess would be practical jokes.
Betting
I wondered what I tripped over on in the street the other night. I swear I never saw anything.
Sarge
This reminds me of a question my junior high school teacher asked our class:
Would you rather be able to become invisible, or be able to fly?
A classmate answered, "I would like to be able to fly, like a bird, because I would then be free, like a bird."
All the girls giggled and thought he was extremely cool.
randomenigma
Dual applications, military and what? Fashion?
PepinGalarga
i am surprised that the US is working with the Chinese on this sensitive area, which has dual applications, including military...
i'm pretty sure that the innovation came from the Chinese side in this case. It's pretty much a one way street if you know what i mean.
There are some good universities and tech parks in Jiangsu province, but i didnt know they were so far ahead in Nanotech.
techall
WillB; You saw an invisible cloak huh. Were you smoking potted plants with an english teacher at the time perhaps??
OssanAmerica
But they gave it to the Klingons.
OssanAmerica
The Japanese have no worries, they'll get it eventually from the US since Japan is an American military asset.
Ke11iente
Well, they're making progress. When the first stories about these experiments were published more than a year ago, I think they could only conceal something about the size of a pencil lead.
electric2004
Well, the idea is interesting. Maybe it might be possible with a well-aligned array of glass-fibers to cloak part of the visible spectrum. The formulas in
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/314/5801/977.pdf
are not so difficult. Maybe an intelligent array of mirrors (in some sense equivalent to glass-fibers) might do the trick. The more I think about it - in 2 dimensions it is easy to cloak a 1-dimensional object. And in 3 dimensions it is easy to hide a 2-dimensional object. Then to hide a 3 dimensional object (in space) a 4-dimensional structure is necessary. So far, 4-dimensional objects (in space) have not yet been build (only in science fiction), so probably the way to go is to transform a fractal geometry from a 2 dimensional surface to a 3-dimensional volume. However, so far I have seen only 2-dimensional fractals ... might be interesting to think about.
Sarge
Nori - That's what you think. The Federation stole it from the Romulans!
Noripinhead
The Romulans already have it.
WillB
A couple years a go a saw an "invisibility cloak" made by japanese scientists, but I think the device was not working with the same kind of process. It was quite impressive thought.
Still I think this kind of technology is just too dangerous. And anyway, what is the point of being invisible? See and not being seen? Thats called spying!
I only see bad uses for this kind of device.
techall
I hear they lost three of them already ...... they think.
telecasterplayer
How will they know if they can't see it?
techall
The Russians? How about the Japanese?
Disillusioned
The Uni students could use this to grow their pot without detection. Great technology!
OssanAmerica
Well don't the Russians feel a bit "left out"?
justmeinto
Maxwell Smart would be proud.