Advances in materials now offer the promise of bending light rays around objects. “These structures can guide electromagnetic waves around an object, only to have them emerge on the other side as if they had passed through an empty volume of space.” In other words, they can create a kind of invisibility. At the heart of this technology is the ability to create structures which can manipulate light information.
The latest advance was made possible by the development of a new series of complex mathematical commands, known as algorithms, to guide the design and fabrication of exotic composite materials known as metamaterials. … Once the algorithm was developed, the latest cloaking device was completed from conception to fabrication in nine days, compared to the four months required to create the original, and more rudimentary, device. This powerful new algorithm will make it possible to custom-design unique metamaterials with specific cloaking characteristics, the researchers said. … Cloaking devices bend electromagnetic waves, such as light, in such a way that it appears as if the cloaked object is not there.
With appropriately fine-tuned metamaterials, electromagnetic radiation at frequencies ranging from visible light to radio could be redirected at will for virtually any application, Smith said. This approach could also lead to the development of metamaterials that focus light to provide more powerful lenses.
The newest cloak, which measures 20 inches by 4 inches and less than an inch high, is actually made up of more than 10,000 individual pieces arranged in parallel rows. Of those pieces, more than 6,000 are unique. Each piece is made of the same fiberglass material used in circuit boards and etched with copper.
The University of Rochester describes the mathematical foundation for cloaking.
Professor Allan Greenleaf first started working on the mathematics of invisibility in 2001. In 2003, with Professors Lassas and Uhlmann, he published two papers about the mathematics that could make objects with special properties invisible (“On Nonuniqueness for Calderon’s Inverse Problem,” Mathematical Research Letters 10, 685-693, 2003, and “Anisotropic Conductivities that cannot be Detected by EIT,” Physiological Measurement 24, 413-419, 2003).
These papers were concerned with the mathematics of electrical impedance tomography (EIT), a medical imaging technique that uses measurements of electric voltages and currents to obtain images of the interior of the body. It was previously known that, under certain assumptions, the measurements uniquely determine the electric conductivity function, which varies from point to point and whose behavior might indicate the presence of tumors. In the two papers of 2003, Greenleaf, Lassas, and Uhlmann showed that, if the conductivity function is allowed to be a tensor, which means that it can depend on direction as well as location, then there are recipes for mathematically constructing different conductivities that are indistinguishable from each other by EIT measurements. At the time, this seemed like something of a curiosity, since it was highly unlikely that the exact mathematical structures needed to produce this “invisibility” would occur in nature, for example, on the exterior of a tumor.
This same mathematics surfaced again in 2006 when Sir John Pendry of Imperial College, Dr. David Schurig and Professor David Smith of Duke University, and Professor Ulf Leonhardt of St. Andrew’s University, wrote papers theoretically proposing the construction of cloaking devices, rendering the objects inside them invisible from observation using electromagnetic (EM) waves. In October 2006, physicists and engineers led by the Duke University team built a device from man-made metamaterials that essentially cloaks a passive copper disk or rod. Based on a mathematical calculation very similar to one proposed in 2003, the metamaterials have special properties in the way that microwaves propagate through, or in this case, around them. The cloaking device bends microwaves around an object and does not cast a shadow. The copper disk or rod inside the cloaking device is invisible. It is as if absolutely nothing is there.
Nature’s full of surprises, isn’t it? But the burgeoning ability to manipulate information flows will not be confined to the visual spectrum. The public is already bombarded by digitally manipulated “fauxtographs” and managed news; it has already been told that the science behind Global Warming cannot be challenged. For a long time the public was told certain financial institutions were “too big to fail”. Pilate asked Jesus, “what is truth?” The modern answer is, “it depends.”
wow. its an old cliche but it seems another star trek invention may come to life.
Does this have any realtionship to the “Philadelphia Experiment” at the close of WWII? All the warstories say that something made a Navy warship seem to disappear for a while.
wretchard:
Manipulating the flow of information is nothing new. That’s how Odysseus defeated Troy.
Manipulating images is nothing new. It was standard practice at one time for magazines and advertisements to airbrush messages such as “SEX” on the foreheads of people.
To paraphrase Wednesday Addams, that Lebanese stringer was sloppy. Professional media men would manipulate images and not get caught.
Imagine what would happen if you created terrifying hellish images and then reversed their color valence from hot summer colors to cool winter colors. These images would incite fear and dread while overtly proclaiming hope and redemption, all the while portraying the product as sacred. Would people buy into such a media campaign? They already have.
We have just experienced the power of a crafted technology to so bend perception as to ensure the election of a stealth candidate of whom the people know precisely nothing. In a sense this leads to an Islamist perception of the Universe. Reality is an illusion that can be manipulated to achieve a goal of pleasing a distant and incomprehensible god. Since all perceptions are false then all means of attaining gratification and approval from the arbitrary and unloving deity are valid.
LotM, well said. I hope you had a chance to read a document that was published a while ago and that explained the manipulative techniques 0 used.
I have it archived, so in the case someone did not read it, I can supply, unsure whether it is still available on line or whether it will be after hopechange takes place.
BTW, Dalai Lama loves George W Bush and sees terrs for what they are and says you can’t fight them through non-violent means.
Many a moonbat heads may pop upon hearing Dalai Lamas views.
Or make it:
May many a moonbat heads pop upon…
There was a good take on manipulation of reality in Carlos Castaneda’s “Don Juan” books, throughout. It is sometimes overlayed by a lot of fluff, but the theme is like a thread that links all his Don Juan related materials.
If you are into more “hands on” stuff, go to youtube and search for Derren Brown.
There is a notion maintaining that humans are very susceptible to internalized external manipulation, at least a large segment of humanity (everyone is susceptible, but the degree can be plotted as a bell curve, so only a small segment can offer some substantial resistance). For the most part, we behave as unaware automatons. There is a discontinuity between subconscious and conscious mind and it is fairly easy to send the conscious part on a tangent while getting uncritical subconscious part under external control.
You can use the cloaking materials to fool technology, but as humans go, they are easy. Give me 5-10 minutes and I can supply you with a brand new screen memory that would be as real as reality itself. Only at the time when you review your life before departing you will realize it was an implant.
I don’t use these techniques except for demo purposes and entertainment, returning the subject to a previous state. The main reason is that if one does use these techniques to achieve some advantage over others, it tends to shift the reality of the manipulator after a while, as well, deception and self-deception go hand-in-hand.
As Don Juan always maintained: “You have to be impeccable”.
Don Juan was wrong.
You have to be human.
You’re critics have to be impeccable.
ADE
Oh God,
your
no, English is important.
ADE
ADE, I think you completely misunderstood what Don Juan meant by “impeccable”.
No, not “I think”, I am certain of it.
And what critics have to do with it, pray tell?
You are not responsible for behavior and motivations of others, you are responsible for your own.
2B4
We are saying the same thing. I’m saying that the only time one should listen to critics is when they are impeccable (at least on the subject in hand).
It all depends on who is casting the first stone. Those with sin (me) are allowed to make mistakes.
Those who cast the first stone have to be without sin. Is this you? Of course not.
The issue is doubt.
ADE
Invisibility to the human eye is of little use today, half a century or more ago would have made you king, but today technology has rendered that advantage as a minor instead of major advantage, in fact this current state of invisibility is not even on par with the current used stealth and even it has its major draw backs which give it limited application, the biggest advantage this invisibility gives us is just the fear factor, fear can be a king maker but it is not a guarantor, so was it worth the resources to create the ability or fear? So what does it say when our society can waste time on the fancies of our mathematicians? True advantage invisibility would leave no signature to see on any of the spectrums, man is limited to a 1D plane of achievement , when man achieves 4D plane he will be as a god in this world, upon the 8th dimension man will be as god! Can there every be a “Human” god? How could more than one “Human” god co-exists with another “Human” god? It would surely be the end of “Humans” if humans were to ever achieve God…
wilderness
It would surely be the end of “Humans” if humans were to ever achieve God…
Wilderness, you have got this completely arse about tit. It will be surely the end of God when humans realise that God was created in their (Man’s) image. Just look at Islam and Bedouin culture.
OK, just to cheer you up, have a look at how European culture created Christianity.
My constant refrain: the BC’ers and like minded are Gods.
Feel the humility.
ADE
I read recently [in Wired think] that the army has used a material to cover a tank that made it invisible.
The material covering the tank would bend thelight around the tank so that the observer saw only what was behind the tank.
Beyond the philosophical questions here, I am full of technical ones.
Does this material “bend”, “sense and re-emit”, “conduct”, or perform some other operation on the electromagnetic radiation hitting it? does it have different modes such as transparent, opaque, and “cloak”. Does it constitute a passive device, or are there electronics involved?
I am intrigued.
This would work very well for a sniper, The ultimate ghillie suit, you could stand in the open and nobody would even see you, just be sure you aren’t standing where someone is walking.
The heat signature for infra-red scanners might be appropriate defensive measures.
There already is an “invisibility” paint for thermal infrared emission. You can find pictures on the web. It does not use the metamaterials technology.
The ultimate value of invisibility always will be the ability to sneak into the girls’ locker room and watch the girls undressed and showering. That idea always will be somewhere in all the male scientists’ conscious minds.
“The ultimate value of invisibility always will be the ability to sneak into the girls’ locker room and watch the girls undressed and showering. That idea always will be somewhere in all the male scientists’ conscious minds.”
Yeah. And last night I watched “Ocean’s Eleven” again. Guys like that would find some interesting nefarious uses for any sort of invisibility mechanism, I’d guess.
Cloaking will never be able to achieve perfection, and the human eye detects the slightest abberation so easily, I can’t see how it would ever be a useful technology…
“These structures can guide electromagnetic waves around an object, only to have them emerge on the other side as if they had passed through an empty volume of space.”
Well, extremely massive objects in outer space already accomplish the same task, and for free…
Jamie Irons
Just imagine–an invisible cruise missile that cannot be seen or detected by conventional radar. Life gets more interesting all the time.
I tell people these days that the money math to teach their kids is algorithms. And as well, statistics.
And as well, statistics.
lies damn lies and statistics. also good management.
But subtle falsifiability seems go with any complex system. I recall telling a guy at lunch after church yesterday, that one characteristic of the Christian language is that context is so much a part of it–that taken out of correct context — it can be used to mean anything really.
Seminarians will put it this way: text without context is a pretext.
Commentators on this post are saying things like this: “so what if you are invisible, you still give off electronic signals, heat, and infrared signals and are still visible.”
But if I read the article correctly, it says they can bend ELECTRO-MAGNETICS signals. The EM spectrum includes visible light but is not limited to it. It is MUCH broader than the light we see. Why everyone is assuming it just works on the visible portion of the EM spectrum is beyond me. Depending on how broadly on the EM spectrum this works, it could render something very nearly invisible from other forms of detection as well.
One wrinkle I have noticed where this has been noted on other boards, is that a couple of Chinese institutions are heavily involved in the project. IOW, we’re sharing the cloaking device with the commies. Ungood? Or will this lead to peace love and understanding? Or have we decided to split the world with China instead of Russia?
Can you imagine the despair of the poor little barbaric jihadist crouched in his cave surfing the internet. He’s just started to wrap his mind around blogging and using video’s when he’s sawing people’s heads off and now he’s reading about all these new technologies designed to catch him off guard, kill him, or worse, make him look like an idiot.
In addition to being squished by the hand of Allah descending from the sky in the form of a long-distance American (or Israeli) missile, now he has to worry about electronic scorpions eavesdropping on his Very Secret Stuff as well as cloaks of invisibility so that when the leaves flutter on that bush over there is it a breeze from Allah or an American sniper getting into position to give him a third eye.
And what must Mrs. Jihad 1, 2, 3 and 4 think that their lord and master is so ineffective at keeping them and the baby jihadi’s safe?
It’s enough to make a Muslim extremely paranoid.
Libertarian,
My guess is the material has to be tuned to properly channel a given frequency band. That is like your radio tuner, it only picks up a narrow frequency band. So, one would have to wear multiple suits to properly channel to properly channel out a wide band of E&M.
So, they could probably design coatings for infrared (which as is noted here already done), radio waves, UV, etc.
#2
It was the fog of war made it disappear.
The prospect of invisibility seems to make evident to all many a man and woman’s concealed inner reality.
hmmm, but the domestic and criminal possibilities are intriguing….
Meta-materials are the real deal. They truly remarkable discovery is they figured out how to construct a material that has a NEGATIVE index of refraction. Think about the classic refraction example, a side view of a pencil dipped into water. With these negative refractory materials the submerged portion of pencil would actually appear back on top of the water projecting out into the air.
There are two amazing things about this discover. One, this process will theoretically work with ALL BANDS of the EM spectrum – infrared, UV, visible light, radio. Basically it refracts all EM energy around the cloak. If you can’t touch the object with external energy you can’t find it via active search tools – radar, sonar, etc. All you can do is passively watch for things the cloaked object emits.
The second truly amazing thing about this stuff is it requires no energy once it has been fabricated. It is an essential physical property of the material itself! That makes it very important you don’t drop your super-awesome-invisibility cloak with the cloaking side face up!
It would appear to me that the ability to cloak an object also ultimately – in fact, probably very quickly in terms of development – equates to the ability to make it look like anything else you desire.
The implications of this are vast. Among other things, it would be embarrassing to cloak yourself and sneak into the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders’ locker room only to discover they are all 14 year old boys.
Did I say embarrassing? I meant horrifying.
This Wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial indicates material tuning is required. That one meta material does not work equally on all forms of E&M radiation — that you will need a layer to handle IR radiation, another for microwaves, another for visible light, etc.
The article I point to also states a working “cloaking device” has been devised for rendering objects invisible in light of 632.8 nm, my recollection is that is the standard laboratory helium-neon laser (HENE).
The one thing that is interesting is these materials can reverse the doppler effect. That would, at least for a time, put a serious mess up on systems relying on standard speed sensing technology. I should get some for my cars!
Whoops, the HENE light invisible cloak is theoretical only. Microwave invisible is real.
And that’s what the articles are writing about–microwave.
My favorite candidate for material research game changers is carbon nanotubes used for semi permeable membranes. These cut the energy requirement for desalination membranes to about the pressure of gravity. They have moved out of the labs and into small companies. They’re probably another two-three years away. The result of these types of membranes will be that instead of a 100 million dollar desalination plant — there’ll be a mushroom on the bottom of a seafloor in 100 feet or so of water. The top will be covered with a carbon nanotube semipermeable membrane. Fresh water will fall through and run to shore. Instead of spending 100 million dollars to build a desalination plant — the cost will be mostly just piping for a million or two.
More detail here
The cost of desalinized water will collapse.
Sure it will, but will you be able to see it?
37. comatus:
Sure it will, but will you be able to see it?
………
my thought is that it will in this century turn the world’s deserts green and double the size of the habitable planet.
So sorry, All carbon must be sequestered in order to save the planet from becoming a desert. We can’t have these “carbon” nano thingies just laying around.
Thank you,
Barak Obama
Is this how they are going to hide the flaws in Obama’s economic plans?
ADE
“Feel the humility” Thank you ADE for making my point, there would not be room for any other god but ADE! Your advice is well suited for your own consumtion “I’m saying that the only time one should listen to critics is when they are impeccable” your pride foreshadows the rest of your abilities, if you knew just a little you would shut-up. It takes more faith and guts to be an atheist then it does to believe the truth, especially after reading you.
Unless that cloak can make you float above the floor while also affecting air currents, it will not let you get into an area that has minimal safeguards.