well it looks like the nod stealth tank will soon be a reality lol better start building lots of mammies to stop the impending stealth tank rush lol~Scientists at the Technology, Education and Design (TED) conference in Los Angeles have demonstrated what is being hailed as breakthrough in the bid to make the invisibility cloak become a reality.
The invisibility cloak has long been a staple of science fiction, with Harry Potter famously using one in his wizard adventures.
But to gasps from the audience, a scientist from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore demonstrated an experiment that appears to make it more than the stuff of fantasy.
A small box made of calcite optical crystal was used to bend light around an object, making anything placed behind the box appear invisible to people watching the demonstration at the TED conference.
Professor Baile Zhang said he was inspired to create the invisibility device “just for fun”.
“I just think the idea is cool,” he said. “Plus, I hope this work will demonstrate that simple tools can sometimes fulfil important functions that previously required complicated methods.”
Professor Zhang admitted that his research was in its early stages, and said that his team was still working out how to make larger and more useful prototypes of the invisibility cloak, according to The Times.
“There are still many limitations here and I don’t have the answers for how to solve them,” he said. “At this stage, this is already the best we can do. There will be quite a long way to go before it can be applied on a practical level. But all researchers in this field, including myself, are making progress, albeit slowly.”
He said that his work with calcite might have more uses than hiding objects, as the substance could also help to improve optical fibres, such as that cables used for broadband internet, or create better “imaging” products such as digital cameras.
Invisibility cloaking might have seemed far-fetched when it was used by Harry Potter or to hide spacecraft in Star Trek, but scientists are continually pushing the boundaries of our ability and understanding; in many ways it is these works of fiction that give the inspiration for the technology of tomorrow.
source: the telegraph http://www.telegraph...conference.html