INVISIBILITY 29
light hitting the cloak would flow around it, rendering the person invisible, but a tiny amount of light would be diverted into the eyes.)
As daunting as these difficulties are, scientists and engineers are
optimistic that an invisibility shield of some sort can be built in the
coming decades.
INVISIBILITY AND
NANOTECHNOLOGY
As I mentioned earlier, the key to invisibility may be nanotechnology,
that is, the ability to manipulate atomic-sized structures about a billionth of a meter across.
The birth of nanotechnology dates back to a famous 1959 lecture
given by Nobel laureate Richard Feynman to the American Physical
Society, with the tongue-in-cheek title "There's Plenty of Room at the
Bottom." In that lecture he speculated on what the smallest machines
might look like, consistent with the known laws of physics. He realized
that machines could be built smaller and smaller until they hit atomic
distances, and then atoms could be used to create other machines.
Atomic machines, such as pulleys, levers, and wheels, were well
within the laws of physics, he concluded, though they would be exceedingly difficult to make.
Nanotechnology languished for years, because manipulating individual atoms was beyond the technology of the time. But then physicists made a breakthrough in 1981, with the invention of the scanning
tunneling microscope, which won the Nobel Prize in Physics for scientists Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, working at the IBM lab in
Zurich.
Suddenly physicists were able to obtain stunning "pictures" of individual atoms arrayed just as in the chemistry books, something that
critics of the atomic theory once considered impossible. Gorgeous
photographs of atoms lined up in a crystal or metal were now possible.
The chemical formulae used by scientists, with a complex series of
atoms wrapped up in a molecule, could be seen with the naked eye.
Moreover, the scanning tunneling microscope made possible the ma-
light hitting the cloak would flow around it, rendering the person invisible, but a tiny amount of light would be diverted into the eyes.)
As daunting as these difficulties are, scientists and engineers are
optimistic that an invisibility shield of some sort can be built in the
coming decades.
INVISIBILITY AND
NANOTECHNOLOGY
As I mentioned earlier, the key to invisibility may be nanotechnology,
that is, the ability to manipulate atomic-sized structures about a billionth of a meter across.
The birth of nanotechnology dates back to a famous 1959 lecture
given by Nobel laureate Richard Feynman to the American Physical
Society, with the tongue-in-cheek title "There's Plenty of Room at the
Bottom." In that lecture he speculated on what the smallest machines
might look like, consistent with the known laws of physics. He realized
that machines could be built smaller and smaller until they hit atomic
distances, and then atoms could be used to create other machines.
Atomic machines, such as pulleys, levers, and wheels, were well
within the laws of physics, he concluded, though they would be exceedingly difficult to make.
Nanotechnology languished for years, because manipulating individual atoms was beyond the technology of the time. But then physicists made a breakthrough in 1981, with the invention of the scanning
tunneling microscope, which won the Nobel Prize in Physics for scientists Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, working at the IBM lab in
Zurich.
Suddenly physicists were able to obtain stunning "pictures" of individual atoms arrayed just as in the chemistry books, something that
critics of the atomic theory once considered impossible. Gorgeous
photographs of atoms lined up in a crystal or metal were now possible.
The chemical formulae used by scientists, with a complex series of
atoms wrapped up in a molecule, could be seen with the naked eye.
Moreover, the scanning tunneling microscope made possible the ma-