Much has been made in recent years of breakthroughs in creating “invisibility cloaks” along the lines of those dreamed up by Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. Now comes word out of China that scientists there have found a way to seek through invisibility cloaks.
Their efforts aren’t so much to uncover objects or those who would be invisible, but rather to solve a problem with invisibility cloaks to date: a person inside such a cloak wouldn’t be able to see out of it. Their findings, which involve a way for unbending some of the light that would go around an invisible object, are detailed in the latest edition of the journal Optics Express.
All of this science boils down to advances in the use of so-called “metamaterials” that interact with light in such a way that they can’t be seen. However, invisibility cloaks are very much still in the labs and only work within a narrow range of wavelengths.
“Cloaking is an important problem since invisibility can help survival in hostile environment,” says Huanyang Chen of Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. in a statement.He and his colleagues have developed the anti-cloak concept.
Invisibility advances have been made in recent years at institutions such as Duke University, Purdue Universityand Carnegie Mellon, where researchers earlier this year came up with an invisibility cloak for nanoparticles.
While an invisibility cloak would bend light around an object, any region that came into contact with the anti-cloak would guide some light back so that it became visible. This would allow an invisible observer to see the outside by pressing a layer of anti-cloak material in contact with an invisibility cloak.
“With the anti-cloak, Potter can see outside if he wants to,” said Chen in a statement.
RELATED:
Hogwarts’ ill-fated IT guy: Who was J.W. Coxrid?
extRelatedLinks[0] = new NW.RelatedLinks.linkObj(“Researchers seek to keep monster Internet telescopes from getting destroyed”,”/news/2007/101707-ohio-state-software.html?nwwpkg=alphadoggs”); extRelatedLinks[1] = new NW.RelatedLinks.linkObj(“Satisfy your appetite for robot news by attending a business conference on topic”,”http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/24435?nwwpkg=alphadoggs”); extRelatedLinks[2] = new NW.RelatedLinks.linkObj(“Supercomputer goes back to the future”,”http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/24407?nwwpkg=alphadoggs”); extRelatedLinks[3] = new NW.RelatedLinks.linkObj(“UMass Amherst launches tech podcasts”,”http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/24273?nwwpkg=alphadoggs”); extRelatedLinks[4] = new NW.RelatedLinks.linkObj(“Internet2 kisses veteran testbed goodbye”,”http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/24221?nwwpkg=alphadoggs”); extRelatedLinks[5] = new NW.RelatedLinks.linkObj(“Microsoft, Intel officials rip pols for lack of federal R&D funding support”,”http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/24220?nwwpkg=alphadoggs”); extRelatedLinks[6] = new NW.RelatedLinks.linkObj(“Online bird observatory takes wing”,”http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/051208-online-bird-observatory.html?nwwpkg=alphadoggs”); extRelatedLinks[7] = new NW.RelatedLinks.linkObj(“Bacteria colonies used to model parallel processing system”,”http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/060208-sorting-algorithms.html?nwwpkg=alphadoggs”);
