Science Close To Unveiling Invisible Man
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')esearchers at the University of California at Berkeley, whose work is funded by the American military, have engineered materials that can control light’s direction of travel. The world’s two leading scientific journals, Science and Nature, are expected to report the results this week.
It follows earlier work at Imperial College London that achieved similar results with microwaves. Like light, these are a form of electromagnetic radiation but their longer wave-length makes them far easier to manipulate. Achieving the same effect with visible light is a big advance.
Underlying the work is the idea that bending visible light around an object will hide it.
Xiang Zhang, the leader of the researchers, said: “In the case of invisibility cloaks or shields, the material would need to curve light waves completely around the object like a river flowing around a rock.” An observer looking at the cloaked object would then see light from behind it – making it seem to disappear.
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Science Close To Unveiling Invisible Man
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Science Close To Unveiling Invisible Man
by Carlhole » Sun 10 Aug 2008, 18:26:01
First thing I'm gonna do when I get my invisibility cloak is to kick one of you science-hating, neo-luddites HARD in the nuts. Then I'll dance around you shouting insults LOUD into this ear and that, dodging away before you can react!
HA! That's what contempt for science gets ya, losers!
- Carlhole
Re: Science Close To Unveiling Invisible Man
by Kingcoal » Mon 11 Aug 2008, 14:04:28
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', 'F')irst thing I'm gonna do when I get my invisibility cloak is to kick one of you science-hating, neo-luddites HARD in the nuts. Then I'll dance around you shouting insults LOUD into this ear and that, dodging away before you can react!
HA! That's what contempt for science gets ya, losers!
HA! That's what contempt for science gets ya, losers!
Obviously, you for some reason believe that your masters will bestow their "blessing" upon you. The delight you take in the potential evil uses of this alleged technology of Big Brother means to me that you foolishly open the door and invite it to be used against yourself. Be careful what you wish for. To worship the whip used by your master is to experience it's sting yourself.
"That's the problem with mercy, kid... It just ain't professional" - Fast Eddie, The Color of Money
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Re: Science Close To Unveiling Invisible Man
by buddylee » Mon 11 Aug 2008, 14:08:43
LoL yes they will mass produce invisibility cloaks and sell them at Wal-Mart for $19.95 a piece.
That or they'll use it to further enslave the human race.
That or they'll use it to further enslave the human race.
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Re: Science Close To Unveiling Invisible Man
by vision-master » Mon 11 Aug 2008, 17:36:36
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hy send up rockets in the late 50's to alter the Christofolios Belts that surround the earth ... that behave like polarizing filters.
Have you heard about the experimental "death ray" that blew away a chunk of our atmosphere back in the 90's when "they" ramped up the power too high.
- vision-master
Re: Science Close To Unveiling Invisible Man
by outcast » Tue 12 Aug 2008, 06:08:28
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vision-master', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hy send up rockets in the late 50's to alter the Christofolios Belts that surround the earth ... that behave like polarizing filters.
Have you heard about the experimental "death ray" that blew away a chunk of our atmosphere back in the 90's when "they" ramped up the power too high.
No.
Here's another articlethat talks about not only this, but some extra refinement in warp drives:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hile cloaking devices would have military applications, a group of scientists researching warp drives say they just want to have the ability to travel to Earth-like exoplanets, like Gliese 581c to better understand the origin and development of life. "The only way we could realistically visit these worlds in time-frames on the order of a human lifespan would be to develop what has been popularly termed a `warp drive,'" said researchers Gerald Cleaver and Richard Obousy from Baylor University in Texas.
Their work expands on research done by theoretical physicist Michael Alcubierre from the University of Mexico, who in 1994 demonstrated space could be made to move around a spacecraft by `stretching' space so that space itself would expand behind a hypothetical spacecraft, while contracting in front of the craft, creating the effect of motion. So, the ship itself doesn't move, but space moves around it.
Their new research tries to take advantage of advances in understanding dark energy and why our universe is ever-expanding in every direction. Comprehending that might give us a leg up in being able to generate an asymmetric bubble around a spacecraft. "If we can understand why spacetime is already expanding, we may be able to use this knowledge to artificially generate an expansion (and contraction) of spacetime," said Cleaver and Obousy in their abstract.
They propose manipulating the 11th dimension, a special theoretical part of an offshoot of string theory called the "m-theory" to create a bubble of dark energy by shrinking the 11th dimension in front of the ship and expanding it behind.
Obviously, this is highly theoretical, but if it leads researchers to a better understanding of dark energy, so much the better.
There’s one hitch, however. Cleaver and Obousy calculated that the energy needed to distort the space around a spacecraft-sized object is about 10^45 Joules or the total energy of an object the size of Jupiter if all its mass were converted into energy.
This creates a chicken and the egg type of conundrum. Which comes first: understanding dark energy or having the ability to create huge amounts of energy?
But Cleaver and Obousy are upbeat about it all. "This is a hypothetical propulsion device that could theoretically circumvent the traditional limitations of special relativity which restricts spacecraft to sub-light velocities. Any breakthrough in this field would revolutionize space exploration and open the doorway to interstellar travel."
Innovation slowing down? Hardly.
