Science close to unveiling invisible man
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor
Invisibility devices, long the realm of science fiction and fantasy, have moved closer after scientists engineered a material that can bend visible light around objects.
The breakthrough could lead to systems for rendering anything from people to large objects, such as tanks and ships, invisible to the eye – although this is still years off.
Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, whose work is funded by the American military, have engineered materials that can control light’s direction of travel. The world’s two leading scientific journals, Science and Nature, are expected to report the results this week.
It follows earlier work at Imperial College London that achieved similar results with microwaves. Like light, these are a form of electromagnetic radiation but their longer wave-length makes them far easier to manipulate. Achieving the same effect with visible light is a big advance.
Underlying the work is the idea 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.
Substances capable of achieving such feats are known as “meta-materials” and have the power to “grab” electromagnetic radiation and deflect it smoothly. No such material occurs naturally and it is only in the past few years that nano-scale engineering, manipulating matter at the level of atoms and molecules, has advanced sufficiently to give scientists the chance to create them.
The tiny scale at which such researchers must operate is astonishing in itself. Zhang’s researchers had to construct a material whose elements were engineered to within about 0.00000066 of a metre.
The military funding that Zhang has won for his research shows what kind of applications it might be used for, ushering in a new age of stealth technology.
I really dig when the science reality of now approaches the science fiction of my youth. An amazing amount of stuff many thought of as far-fetched then seem eerily prescient. The next 50 to 100 years should be exciting as long as we don't destroy ourselves or our planet.
It is sad that some of the most exciting advances come about because of a perceived military need.
"O divine art of subtlety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible and hence we can hold the enemy's fate in our hands." -- Sun Tzu
3 comments:
Reading SF can't help but prepare you for the future - and the present actually. Most of what SF authors 'predicted' turned out to be wrong but its the very idea that things change - often unexpectedly - that keeps you in shape to cope with what technological advances throw at us all.
dbackdad said: It is sad that some of the most exciting advances come about because of a perceived military need.
Unfortunately the military have *lots* of money for blue sky research so can invent all kinds of shit. Its either that or to make things go fast or make lots of money....
I agree ... set-in-stone predictions weren't really the point of sci-fi. It's about being open to, as you say, "the very idea that things change".
Science fiction not only left me open to the idea, but also excited about the fact that we don't know everything. How boring and sad it must be going through life thinking that your life is pre-ordained.
dbackdad said: Science fiction not only left me open to the idea, but also excited about the fact that we don't know everything. How boring and sad it must be going through life thinking that your life is pre-ordained.
SF is my mind expanding drug of choice.
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