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Harry Potter invisibility cloak to transform from fictional technology to reality in 5 years
The imaginative uses of an invisibility cloak are, invade a foreign country, avoid paying the bus fare, gain entry to Showcase cinemas free, eavesdrop with impunity, and find out what your friends really think of you. Your dream of owning an invisibility cloak that works just like the one Harry Potter inherited from his father is on the verge of becoming a reality. Research in the field of invisibility has so far been the domain of the defense forces, like the UK developing a tank, the US Navy working on a Navy ship and the researchers at the University of California in Berkeley. Researchers from Purdue University, Indiana say the magical object may come to life within five years. They are using "nanotechnology" and "metamaterials" along with Einstein's theory of general relativity. The whole idea behind metamaterials is to create materials designed and engineered out of artificial atoms, meta-atoms, which are smaller than the wavelengths of light itself, just like water wrapping around a pebble making invisible both the cloak and an object hidden inside.
The US army, which is funding the research, could use the technology in combat, making equipment, or people, disappear. They are developing it for the American military, who want to make tanks and other artillery disappear.
British Army tests 'invisible' tank, ala James Bond style
Quite reminding you of Q or David Copperfield, the Ministry of Defense has unveiled a new technology that can make tanks invisible. They carried out secret trials recently and have stated that the invisible tank would be ready for service by 2012. The technology involves using cameras and projectors to beam images of the surrounding landscape onto a tank. As a result, anyone looking in the direction of the vehicle only sees what is beyond it and not the tank itself. According to a soldier present at the trial, "This technology is incredible. If I hadn't been present I wouldn't have believed it. I looked across the fields and just saw grass and trees - but in reality I was staring down the barrel of a tank gun." The Ministry is also working on a military jacket that works on the same principle. MoD's Professor Sir John Pendry, of Imperial College London, has developed this latest technology.
How the 'invisible' tanks perform in actual conditions is quite speculative. The only drawback seems to be the reliability of the cameras and projectors. According to Sir John Pendry "The next stage is to make the tank invisible without them - which is intricate and complicated, but possible."
Navy Battleships progressing toward invisibility
Seems to me that a lot of Hollywood science fiction writers are given physics jobs at the navy. If all goes well then the Austin Martin in the movie Die another day could soon be a reality. Wars throughout the twentieth century prompted advances in stealth technologies. Some of the earliest but most significant strides towards invisibility involved covering ships with flamboyant cubist patterns – a technique known as "dazzle painting". During the Second World War, the US military even worked out a way of using lights to make the brightness of a ship match that of the background sea. Radar was born. For ships to dodge radar, both a ship's geometry and a ship's coating have to be considered. Radars are particularly receptive to right angles, which is why modern battleships are often peculiarly shaped. Special paint and foam-coating have also been used to cover ships, which convert radio-waves into heat and stop radio waves being reflected, rendering the signals useless. The "stealthiest" ship that currently exists is Sweden's Visby Corvette. Apart from being painted in grey dazzle camouflage and made of low-radar reflectivity materials, it also does not use propellers, which are the noisiest part of a ship. The vessel also has the lowest "magnetic signature" of any current warship. But the next generation of warships could be truly invisible by exploiting "metamaterials" – artificially engineered structures first dreamt up by physicist John Pendry at Imperial College, London.
Metamaterials are tailored to have specific electromagnetic properties not found in nature. In particular, they can bend light around an object, making it appear to an observer as though the waves have passed through empty space.
Scientists develop material which can bend light - Hollow man will soon be real
What Harry Potter, Debtors and husbands have been doing for a long time pretty soon scientists are going to make it possible for all people to do…vanish! Apparently the researchers at the University of California in Berkeley have developed a material that can bend light around 3D objects making them "disappear". As amusing as this sounds, I wonder what will happen when this kind of technology gets to the wrong hands. The premise of the research is that bending visible light around an object will hide it.
Xiang Zhang, the leader of the researchers, said: "In the case of invisibility cloaks or shields, the material would need to curve light waves completely around the object like a river flowing around a rock. An observer looking at the cloaked object would then see light from behind it — making it seem to disappear."[/img]
