INVISIBILITY
You cannot depend on your eyes when
your imagination is out of focus.
-MARK TWAIN
In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a Rlingon battle cruiser is hijacked
by the crew of the Enterprise. Unlike the starships in the Federation
Star Fleet, the starships of the Rlingon Empire have a secret "cloaking
device" that renders them invisible to light or radar, so that Rlingon
ships can sneak up behind Federation starships and ambush them
with impunity. This cloaking device has given the Rlingon Empire a
strategic advantage over the Federation of Planets.
Is such a device really possible? Invisibility has long been one of
the marvels of science fiction and fantasy, from the pages of The Invisible Man, to the magic invisibility cloak of the Harry Potter books, or
the ring in The Lord of the Rings. Yet for at least a century, physicists
have dismissed the possibility of invisibility cloaks, stating flatly that
they are impossible: They violate the laws of optics and do not conform
to any of the known properties of matter.
But today the impossible may become possible. New advances in
"metamaterials" are forcing a major revision of optics textbooks.
Working prototypes of such materials have actually been built in the
laboratory, sparking intense interest by the media, industry, and the
military in making the visible become invisible.
You cannot depend on your eyes when
your imagination is out of focus.
-MARK TWAIN
In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a Rlingon battle cruiser is hijacked
by the crew of the Enterprise. Unlike the starships in the Federation
Star Fleet, the starships of the Rlingon Empire have a secret "cloaking
device" that renders them invisible to light or radar, so that Rlingon
ships can sneak up behind Federation starships and ambush them
with impunity. This cloaking device has given the Rlingon Empire a
strategic advantage over the Federation of Planets.
Is such a device really possible? Invisibility has long been one of
the marvels of science fiction and fantasy, from the pages of The Invisible Man, to the magic invisibility cloak of the Harry Potter books, or
the ring in The Lord of the Rings. Yet for at least a century, physicists
have dismissed the possibility of invisibility cloaks, stating flatly that
they are impossible: They violate the laws of optics and do not conform
to any of the known properties of matter.
But today the impossible may become possible. New advances in
"metamaterials" are forcing a major revision of optics textbooks.
Working prototypes of such materials have actually been built in the
laboratory, sparking intense interest by the media, industry, and the
military in making the visible become invisible.