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Inspired perhaps by Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak, scientists have recently developed several ways—some simple and some involving new technologies—to hide objects from view. The latest effort, developed at the University of Rochester, not only overcomes some of the limitations of previous devices, but it uses inexpensive, readily available materials in a novel configuration.
“There’ve been many high tech approaches to cloaking and the basic idea behind these is to take light and have it pass around something as if it isn’t there, often using high-tech or exotic materials,” said John Howell, a professor of physics at the University of Rochester. Forgoing the specialized components, Howell and graduate student Joseph Choi developed a combination of four standard lenses that keeps the object hidden as the viewer moves up to several degrees away from the optimal viewing position.
“This is the first device that we know of that can do three-dimensional, continuously multi-directional cloaking, which works for transmitting rays in the visible spectrum,” said Choi, a PhD student at Rochester’s Institute of Optics.
(Score: 2) by JeanCroix on Monday September 29 2014, @09:01PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 30 2014, @09:56AM
Indeed, their "invisibility cloak" is itself very visible. The point of an invisibility cloak is that you see nothing special. If I were to hide behind this "invisibility cloak" I could just as well hide behind an opaque object. Yes, you wouldn't see what's behind me, but hey, I would be invisible!
Maybe I should patent my invisibility cloak made out of cardboard. ;-)
BTW, magicians for a long time used "invisibility cloaks" which didn't even need fancy lenses, but worked with simple mirrors!