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Interesting If It Scales

The BBC reports that the Invisibility cloak ‘step closer’

Scientists in the US say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people invisible.

Researchers at the University of California in Berkeley have developed a material that can bend light around 3D objects making them “disappear”.

The materials do not occur naturally but have been created on a nano scale, measured in billionths of a metre.

If you can make the objects disappear, then you could say you built them and covered them with an invisibility cloak, while you don’t actually bother to build them.

They’ll have to install horns inside military vehicles that are triggered by a remote or no one will be able to find their tank.

10 comments

1 Steve Bates { 08.10.08 at 11:52 pm }

… no one will be able to find their tank.

Haven’t there already been instances of that? 🙂

2 Bryan { 08.11.08 at 12:27 am }

Actually there have been instances where a search was required to find equipment [I know about a truck and a water tanker] that had been so cleverly camouflaged using the nets and local shrubbery, that the crews couldn’t find them after chow.

In general when things get lost it is a result of crew impairment after imbibing local potables.

3 ellroon { 08.11.08 at 2:08 am }

Lol, I just posted on this.

I wonder when the Pentagon will use it to hide the bombers aiming for Iran. “If they can’t see us, we can deny it!”

4 Kryten42 { 08.11.08 at 6:50 am }

I just hope I’m dead before the make it work full scale. IN any case, it’ll either be China or Russia that make use of it first. 🙂 It’ll never leave the lab in the USA, you’d have to outsource manufacturing to China anyway! LOL

5 mariamaria { 08.11.08 at 8:51 am }

This is very interesting…Harry Potter meets nanotech. If only we could use that leviosa spell…but they will probably figure out how to levitate people as well.

6 Bryan { 08.11.08 at 9:47 am }

It will provide a convenient excuse:

The WMDs were under invisibility cloaks.

What woman?

I didn’t buy a motorcycle.

New computer? Of course not.

Nuclear weapons? They were stored next to the invisibility cloaks.

Upscaling a billion times to produce a meter of cloth is quite a challenge, not to mention trying to load a loom with invisible thread – how do you know if a spool is empty?

7 Jack K., the Grumpy Forester { 08.11.08 at 10:09 am }

…like I said over yonder, I see some promising civilian applications, such as having the opportunity to be at my desk getting something done instead of being dragged off to the Meeting From Hell because somebody sees me sitting there. I can’t wait…

8 Bryan { 08.11.08 at 11:44 am }

Welcome to the bayou, Mariamaria. I don’t think generally available magick would be a good idea. We don’t seem to be able to deal with the real world, I dread to think what would happen if we opened up magik to the masses. I remember the point being covered in the Potter series.

Well, a little judicious use in the workplace wouldn’t be out of line, Jack.

9 Kryten42 { 08.11.08 at 8:15 pm }

Hmmmm! You do have a point there Jack! LOL

Of course… the way the World is today… it’ll probably be more used to spy on women in the rest rooms in an office, than for anything remotely resembling good honest application of the technology. And please don’t even mention the words *moral* and *ethical*. I see those words disappearing from the dictionary in years to come. I can see a huge increase in muggings for eg. *sigh*

What a World(tm)

…and yes… I’m in an annoyed mood today.

10 Bryan { 08.11.08 at 9:03 pm }

The criminal and espionage uses are manifest and given the total lack of security at what should be classified establishments, I don’t think it will be long until the criminals have more of these than the police.