How To Cloak Objects At a Distance 136
KentuckyFC writes "All invisibility cloaks to date work by hiding an object embedded inside them. Now a group of physicists have worked out how to remotely cloak objects that sit outside a cloaking material. The trick is to make the cloaking material with optical properties that are exactly complementary to the space outside them. Complementary means that the material reverses the effect the space has on a plane wave of light passing through it. To an observer this space would appear to vanish. The scientists say that to cloak an object sitting outside the cloaking material, first measure its optical properties and then embed a "complementary image" of the object within the cloak. So a plane wave is first distorted by the object but then restored to a plane by the complementary image of the object within the cloak (abstract). An observer sees nothing. This method has another benefit. Objects hidden in conventional cloaks are blinded because no light enters the cloaked region. But objects that are remotely cloaked like this should still be able to see their surroundings."
Re:Yawn (Score:5, Funny)
Wow smart scientists... (Score:5, Funny)
"The trick is to make the cloaking material with optical properties that are exactly complementary to the space outside them. "
So if you are hiding a tank in the desert, paint it desert colors?
Oh wait more complex... desert != shiny...
use flat paint.
got it!
Re:Yawn (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Yawn (Score:4, Funny)
You'll know when cloaking is really working when the monthly dupe of "cloaking, this time for real" stops showing up here.
Because they managed to cloak the article?
Firing while cloaked (Score:5, Funny)
The better question is, can they fire while cloaked? I hear the Klingons made substantial advances in that area.
Not a dupe, but... (Score:5, Funny)
"Gee, if we had enough money, we could make your troops invisible, Mr. General Sir."
Re:Wow smart scientists... (Score:5, Funny)
So if you are hiding a tank in the desert, paint it desert colors?
We've actually gone one step further. We've actually built an entire tank made out of sand. Our prototype required very little materials other than that: a bucket, a shovel and a beach.
It's still a prototype though since it breaks easily, but it does blend in with its surroundings, and it has been proven combat worthy by having our troops stomp over sandcastles.
wait (Score:5, Funny)
Jeez (Score:5, Funny)
Everyone knows that a tachyon sub-space burst from the main deflector dish invariates the sublimated inverse proportional fields that all cloaking devices use.
Phase the array with multi-numinal values and any cloak in the perimeter will be dropped due to subversive nominal decay but only if you attune your tertiary sensing systems to compensate for the quadralinear flux.
This is all so simple, and I have to wonder about the credentials of /. editors that would post such elementary issues on this website.
I mean really, this is first trimester stuff that any recruit can do off the tops of their heads.
50% of the population does it all the time (Score:5, Funny)
How hard can it be if even girls manage it?
How to not be seen at a distance, low-tech style.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How to not be seen at a distance, low-tech styl (Score:5, Funny)
Notquitecajun, will you stand up please. (gunshot)
This demonstrates the value of not being seen.
The fast show (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Misplaced effort. (Score:3, Funny)
They should be working on the SEP field.
Hitchikers guide reference:
"The technology required to actually make something invisible is so complex and unreliable that it isn't worth the bother. The Somebody Else's Problem field is much simpler and more effective, and can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery. This is because it relies on people's natural predisposition not to see anything they don't want to, weren't expecting, or can't explain."
You don't even need a battery. Just build it to look like a sink full of dirty dishes in a student household and no one will see it.
Re:I just need an old-kind Invisibility Cloak (Score:2, Funny)
You do realize you will be blind, right?
Unless you poke some holes in your cloak, and then people will just see eyes floating in the air.
Actually, that seems like a fantastic idea.
Sign me up!
So, in summary... (Score:2, Funny)
General: "That's amazing, let's try these out."
Scientists: "Right, Here is one you can try, but if you want more then we need money... a lot of money."
General: "Sorry, the deals off, the soldiers say they can't see out of it when they're inside it."
Scientists: "Give us a few minutes."
[Obligatory view of shed with hammering and sawing noises]
Scientists: "Okay, how about your troops just hide behind it?"
Re:Big-ass photo... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yawn (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wow smart scientists... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wow smart scientists... (Score:5, Funny)
Heh, you know to this day I'm still pissed about something that happened when I was in 2nd grade. We were doing some kind of group work thing and I got was this multiple choice question about what a telescope could be made out of. One of the possible answers was sand. I instantly came up with the design in my head. The question wasn't very specific so I wasn't sure if I would need to melt the sand to form the lenses but I knew I could use a glue/sand mixture for the body (shaped by a mold while it hardened).
Naturally I got the answer "wrong" and nobody would listen to me. That episode basically represents how my entire life has gone when dealing with other people...
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Funny)
wrong road (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I just need an old-kind Invisibility Cloak (Score:4, Funny)
You do realize you will be blind, right?
Unless you poke some holes in your cloak, and then people will just see eyes floating in the air.
Actually, that seems like a fantastic idea. Sign me up!
Okay so that's one invisibility cloak for...Mr Anonymous Coward.
Re:Wow smart scientists... (Score:4, Funny)
Otherwise known as "Too smart for your own good." That happened to me all the time while I was growing up.
Now people just think I'm a crank when I make non-linear associations like that.
Re:Yawn (Score:1, Funny)
Wow, are we really citing Harry Potter?
Re:Yawn (Score:3, Funny)