Invisibility cloak

[TangoWhiskey]

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2006/October/19100602.asp

I heard about this on NPR yesterday…

They wrap an object (Airplane? Missile? Ship?) in a copper mesh impregnated in fiberglass, and radar/microwave energy no longer reflects off the object, but "flows" around it and rejoins on the other side, like water does around a boulder in a stream… radar doesn't see it at all.

 

[Anthony]

Damn Romulons.

 

[TangoWhiskey]

Damn Romulons.

The applications can go beyond military. One of the scientists working on the project said:

We hope that the new metals or alloys will be put to use in cloaking objects not only for military stealth uses, but also in such things as cloaking an object that gets in the way of an air traffic controller’s radar device.

 

[TangoWhiskey]

Apparently, they've also made progress with bending LIGHT rays around objects, which makes them practically invisible to the EYES:

Pendry has shown that electromagnetic fields can be redirected around an object at will by altering the structure of a material. This led his team to design a cloaking material that light can flow round, much like water in a stream flowing round an obstacle: further downstream, the flowing water shows no signs that it was previously diverted. When light waves join up, the object they have gone round can’t be seen.

Pendry likened the cloaking device to a controlled version of a mirage on a hot road, where changing temperature alters the refractive index of the air above the road’s surface making a strange image of the sky appear. By having control over this process, optical effects can be created that cause invisibility.

But there is disagreement brewing in the metamaterial world. Ulf Leonhardt at the University of St Andrews, UK, claims it is impossible to make cloaking devices that achieve perfect invisibility, ‘one can never completely hide from waves,’ he said.

Pendry disagrees. With his wavelength-specific devices, light from a single wavelength can make an object entirely invisible. A cloak could make an object invisible to red light, but as the light shifts to green and blue wavelengths, parts of the object would become visible, he said, adding that, with the help of colleagues at Duke University, US, these materials will be made within 18 months.

 

[ausrere]

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2006/October/19100602.asp

I heard about this on NPR yesterday…

They wrap an object (Airplane? Missile? Ship?) in a copper mesh impregnated in fiberglass, and radar/microwave energy no longer reflects off the object, but "flows" around it and rejoins on the other side, like water does around a boulder in a stream… radar doesn't see it at all.

Cool. Kind of Philadelphia Experiment-meets-2006 stuff. Without the object appearing several thousand miles away from where it started of course. B)

 

[Anthony]

Has anyone discussed this with Scotty or the Captain?

 

[fgcason]

That seems like an awful lot of effort to go through to make something invisible to only 3cm microwaves.

How about inventing something useful..like things that can be seen no matter what's done to hide it?

They're trying to reinvent just a teeny part of a wheel that already exists in it's entirely and is proven completely real world functional. All I have to do is mount up, turn a key and push a little red button and this puppy and anything in physical contact with it vanishes completely from the entire electromagnetic AND audio spectrum. POOF! GONE! Completely Totally Undetectable Infreakingvisible.

 

[TangoWhiskey]

That seems like an awful lot of effort to go through to make something invisible to only 3cm microwaves.

How about inventing something useful..like things that can be seen no matter what's done to hide it?

They're trying to reinvent just a teeny part of a wheel that already exists in it's entirely and is proven completely real world functional. All I have to do is mount up, turn a key and push a little red button and this puppy and anything in physical contact with it vanishes completely from the entire electromagnetic AND audio spectrum. POOF! GONE! Completely Totally Undetectable Infreakingvisible.

That was funny! When you can sell that thing to the military for $2.5B, we'll talk!

 

[jesse]

That seems like an awful lot of effort to go through to make something invisible to only 3cm microwaves.

How about inventing something useful..like things that can be seen no matter what's done to hide it?

They're trying to reinvent just a teeny part of a wheel that already exists in it's entirely and is proven completely real world functional. All I have to do is mount up, turn a key and push a little red button and this puppy and anything in physical contact with it vanishes completely from the entire electromagnetic AND audio spectrum. POOF! GONE! Completely Totally Undetectable Infreakingvisible.

I don't know. Radar has detected me on my bike one two many times. It does get a bit expensive.

 

[tonycondon]

even when the cop doesnt understand that drag increases with the square of velocity?

 

[fgcason]

That was funny! When you can sell that thing to the military for $2.5B, we'll talk!

Hmmm... I don't like selling my toys however I might actually have to let it go for that price. I could hire my anticollision skills out to them for another $1B easy.
All I know is it's completely invisible even with my bumblebee yellow crash gear. Put it on the front of a supertanker anchored in the middle of a busy harbor and push the starter button. Every single boat, including inflateable rafts, coming into port that day will ram straight into it without seeing it.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

Yawn. Been there, done that

Or at least that how my plane appears to some of the yahoos that cut me off in the pattern.