[Peace-discuss] Scientists Create 'Invisibility Cloak'

[Chas. 'Mark' Bee]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ricky Baldwin" <baldwinricky at yahoo.com>
To: "peace discuss" <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
Sent: Monday, October 23, 2006 11:44 AM
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Scientists Create 'Invisibility Cloak'


> Why not?  The government's sanity is invisible ... and
> seems to deflect any attempt at humane reason or
> compassion.
>
> But seriously, folks, the problem with invisibility is
> that if you're completely invisible, you can't see.  I
> think it could be an amusing development as a weapon,
> preferably a big clumsy one, and it certainly works
> well as a metaphor.
>
> But I suspect it will prove as useful as Star Wars,
> and in the same way: an excuse to cut for social
> programs.
>
> Ricky

  It's not that big of a thing, in terms of scale.  Metaoptics is a very new 
field, enabled by the new ability to form materials out of nanoscopic building 
blocks smaller than light waves.  Such materials are hideously expensive, 
easily damaged, can only be made in special facilities that still only exist in 
a few places, and the invisibity trick apparently only works from one direction 
of observation.  One real issue with metaoptics is the arrival of lenses with 
relatively unlimited resolution.  And the ideal place to stick hideously 
expensive lenses like that is where you only need a few - in blimp telescopes 
and spy satellites - which they might very well paradoxically make cheaper to 
build due to the simplification they could allow.

  As far as not being able to see, that would not really be a problem, even if 
these things could be used out in the real world.  Since we're basically 
talking about a big bowling ball of directionally transparent _stuff_ instead 
of some mysterious field effect, you'd just stick little cameras outside of it.


>
> --- Chuck Minne <mincam2 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>         Scientists Create 'Invisibility Cloak' to
>> Shield Objects from Microwaves          A team of
>> American and British researchers announced Thursday
>> that it developed the first working "invisibility
>> cloak" for objects that enables them to deflect
>> microwaves.                              The
>> researchers were able to "hide" a small copper
>> cylinder from a microwave beam, essentially by
>> deflecting the beam and having it meet on the other
>> side of the object.
>>
>>   Like light waves and radar waves, microwaves
>> bounce off of objects and make them visible -- in
>> the case of light waves to the naked eye, and in the
>> case of microwaves or radar waves to other
>> detectors.
>>
>>   Researchers David Schurig and David Smith of Duke
>> University used a type of laboratory-made material
>> called metamaterial -- in this case made of copper
>> wires patterned onto sheets of fiberglass composite
>> -- to make the cloak.
>>
>>   The device, composed of concentric circles of the
>> metamaterial surrounding the copper cylinder,
>> channels the microwaves around the cylinder rather
>> than reflecting them.
>>
>>   "The waves' movement is similar to river water
>> flowing around a smooth rock," Schurig said in a
>> press release from the university.
>>
>>   The work, which will appear in Friday's edition of
>> the journal Science, was funded by the Defense
>> Advanced Research Projects Agency.
>>
>>   The military is interested in the work because of
>> the possibility of hiding planes from radar,
>> according to the Associated Press. Currently
>> available stealth technology reduces the size of the
>> plane visible to radar, making it difficult to track
>> -- but not entirely invisible.
>>
>>   The new research also may be a first step toward a
>> device that could actually hide objects from visible
>> light, but the researchers say they are not yet sure
>> when or if that will become possible.
>>
>>   Conceptually, it would be very possible to adapt
>> the technology to visible light, Schurig told the
>> AP. But, he added, from an engineering standpoint it
>> would be difficult.
>>
>>   The cloak must be specifically configured for a
>> particular bandwidth of radiation. Visible light is
>> made up of many different wavelengths, all of which
>> are much smaller than the wavelength of microwaves.
>>
>>   So to make an object disappear from sight, a cloak
>> would have to interact with all of the wavelengths,
>> or colors, at once, Smith said in the press
>> statement. That technology would require more
>> intricate and tiny metamaterials than those that
>> exist now, he said.
>>
>>   Researcher Natalia Litchinitser of the University
>> of Michigan department of electrical engineering
>> told the AP that the work appeared to be the first
>> experimental demonstration of cloaking based on
>> metamaterials.
>>
>>   "Although the invisibility reported in this paper
>> is not perfect, this work provides a
>> proof-of-principle demonstration of the
>> possibility," she said.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Before you call 9/11 conspiracy nuts crazy, explain
>> what happened to 7 World Trade Center (WTC7) and how
>> it was accomplished. (Never heard of WTC7 before,
>> have you? - that's not surprising, it's the camel in
>> the tent that everybody ignores.)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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