Invisibility Shield in the Works

[NovaBurn]

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050228/full/050228-1.html

The idea of a cloak of invisibility that hides objects from view has long been confined to the more improbable reaches of science fiction. But electronic engineers have now come up with a way to make one.

Andrea Alù and Nader Engheta of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia say that a 'plasmonic cover' could render objects "nearly invisible to an observer". Their idea remains just a proposal at this stage, but it doesn't obviously violate any laws of physics.

"The concept is an interesting one, with several important potential applications," says John Pendry, a physicist at Imperial College in London, UK. "It could find uses in stealth technology and camouflage."


Neato. What you guys think? False hopes or adaptive camo in the next decade?

[SquidDNA]

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=57747

[TBS]

Indeed. (http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread.php?t=57747)

Its less impressive when you realise the scale of things they believe they are capable of cloaking.

[KushanFarsight]

i remember talking to a freind about the T-100 project "AKA. Black Eagle" and how there was the idea of using LCD layers over the top of the tank, using micro cameras to gain the images. it wasnt ground breaking technology, but it was an interesting concept.

[Captain Pierce]

There's a Bird-of-Prey out there, and she can fire while cloaked.

[PhoenixLord]

live long and prosper

On topic: Not that impressive but still neat.

[Kroggy]

New drinking game!

One shot everytime a new thread on adaptive camo is made!

[SquidDNA]

Some people check the fora at work, Krogoth. :lol:

[NovaBurn]

and some people don't check the forums every day.

/me slaps squid

[Bonnet]

And of course the shielding would work fine for concealing large objects such as spaceships from sensors or telescopes that used long-wavelength radiation instead of visible light.
Thats the most intresting peace.

[Chrome]

Interesting. Obviously it's going to be a while before they get all the kinks out of it to where it IS an effective cloak and/or weapon. But it's promising. :D

[SpinDizzy]

I use to think about this. Imagining a wall of flat screen monitors stuck together in a sort of big shield, that had a camera pointing out the back of it which projected the image it saw onto the screen at the front, effectivly copying and adapting to anything behind it, would kinda work. Although, you would have to have the angle right, and constantly adjust the zoom ranges and everything if you moved forwards and backwards, and the problem of trying to conceal something behind it, I guess you'd just freeze frame it first. :D

[Starfisher]

It would work until someone looked at it from an oblique angle.

[Nurizeko]

you have to give it to these kinda people, they sure are persistant to relize their sci-fi fantasy's before science is ready to allow us.

when i see an invisible (or not as the case might be) object like a tank or sommin on the evening news, my level of niterest should sky rocket but for now ill just blink with passing attention

:hover:

[Moe]

Did anyone actually read the article, especially the part about the wavelenghts? If you apply that technology to a fighter jet which is, say, 20m in length, you would make it invisible to ~20m waves. Congratulations, you just stealthed it from long-wave communications frequencies! Too bad it still shows up on Radar, IR and visual sensors, though.

[Nurizeko]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v384/nurizeko/purestealth.jpg

[SquidDNA]

Also, as I pointed out on the other thread, it has to be spherical.

[Ammon Ra]

something that i did ask in the other thead was what if you had lotsof spheres with a width of the wavelength of visible light? If you were to then take lots of those spheres, slap them on, say, a car, would the car be less visible to visible light, or less visible to light with a wavelengtht of ~ 2-3meters?

[SquidDNA]

No, the spheres would.

[The Collector]

The "LCD" idea only works if you have a infinite number of infinitestimally tiny screens. Otherwise inconsistencies appear based on viewer angle, which I believe was addressed already.

Light with a wavelength of 3m: Wouldn't that be moving into the low-energy end like radio and such?

[Merturk_NB]

They already have suits that "bend" the light around objects. I saw a special on discovery channel where the police used them to sneak up on a group of people holding up in a house. The cops look like "heat waves" until they get a certain distance away. It's been around for a while.

[Moe]

3m is below radar, that's about LF radio comms I think.

[Reignfire]

Nurizeko's picture reminds me of an airshow that I went to years ago where they had a roped off area with a sign saying that it's a stealth fighter guarded by stealth guard dogs.

[Chrome]

Sounds like it wouldn't really be "invisiblity" tech for a while, considering some of those shortcomings. And even if the major issues were dealt with, I'd say those types of things could still be detected by fairly low-tech means if you're dealing with merely making them not visible to the human eye or certain types of sensors. The most obvious? Watch where your cloaked people walk. XD

Even Star Trek, for a while, pointed up weaknesses to cloaking technology. I noticed the later series seemed to try and technobabble their way around that, but obviously, there'd be tradeoffs somewhere, either in power allocations to weapons and other systems, or in creating the effect of total invisiblity.

I doubt reality will be any different, no matter how advanced that ultimately becomes.