Mathematicians Design Invisible Tunnel

New calculations show how to make an electromagnetic "wormhole" — a tube that is invisible from the sides but allows light to shine down the center. The practical applications are a ways off, as even the design of a spherical invisibility cloak has not advanced beyond working (in theory) for a single wavelength of visible light.

Re:military

[ByteSlicer]

Or they could build their tunnels out of metal-shielded concrete, and nobody would see what they are moving either (for a fraction of the price, probably).

Re:Wormhole?

[noidentity]

Wow, I just took a flashlight and shined it straight down in front of me and I didn't see the beam in the air at all. I better see if there's one of these invisible tunnels in front of me.

Oh, wait, that's what light already does.

Re:military

[cathector]

why is this modded 4/interesting ?
you don't even have to read the article. right there in the summary it says "a tube that is invisible from the sides but allows light to shine down the center." (not that the article actually says much more than the summary)

so while i'm sure the military will have an application for this, as they seem to have applications for anything which my money can be spent on, the only things which can be moved thru the tunnel are photons.

Re:But what is it good for?

[suv4x4]

The one application that struck me is the holographic implications. If you can get light to move to a precise spot in mid-air through an invisible tunnel, you can make objects appear anywhere. No smoke or mirrors required.

A laser beam is already invisible since it travels in a given direction. There's no light-saber beam line, like in the movies (as you probably know).

The problem with holograms is, how do you scatter that beam at any given point (thus the smoke or vapour or whatever), so it becomes a visible light point. And thus, thus technology doesn't help holograms at all.

Plus to create a workable resolution images (say 800 voxels = 800^3) that's 512 million tunnels, recreated/readjusted from 20 to 60 times a second. Or one really fast moving tunnel covering around 10 billion locations per second.

Since the solution involves metal rings building the tunnel.. how the heck do you imagine this in a hologram in midair ;)?