Posted on 07/31/2006 11:25:04 AM PDT by AntiGuv
LONDON (Reuters) - It's unlikely to occur by swallowing a pill or donning a special cloak, but invisibility could be possible in the not too distant future, according to research published on Monday.
Harry Potter accomplished it with his magic cloak. H.G. Wells' Invisible Man swallowed a substance that made him transparent.
But Dr Ulf Leonhardt, a theoretical physicist at St Andrews University in Scotland, believes the most plausible example is the Invisible Woman, one of the Marvel Comics superheroes in the "Fantastic Four."
"She guides light around her using a force field in this cartoon. This is what could be done in practice," Leonhardt told Reuters in an interview. "That comes closest to what engineers will probably be able to do in the future."
Invisibility is an optical illusion that the object or person is not there. Leonhardt uses the example of water circling around a stone. The water flows in, swirls around the stone and then leaves as if nothing was there.
"If you replace the water with light then you would not see that there was something present because the light is guided around the person or object. You would see the light coming from the scenery behind as if there was nothing in front," he said.
In the research published in the New Journal of Physics, Leonhardt described the physics of theoretical devices that could create invisibility. It is a follow-up paper to an earlier study published in the journal Science.
"What the Invisible Woman does is curve space around herself to bend light. What these devices would do is to mimic that curved space," he said.
Although the devices are still theoretical, Leonhardt said scientists are making advances in metamaterials -- artificial materials with unusual properties that could be used to make invisibility devices.
"There are advances being made in metamaterials that mean the first devices will probably be used for bending radar waves or the electromagnetic waves used by mobile phones," he said.
The devices could be used as protection mechanisms so the radiation emitted from mobile phones does not penetrate electronic equipment. It is guided around it.
"It is very likely that the demonstration for radar would come first and very soon. To go into the visual will take some time but it is also not so far off," Leonhardt said.
Aurora is big, very fast (3000+mph), and...seems to "disappear" in a blink.
It's a reality.
The proof?
The National Archives docs that Sandy Burglar stole.
bump ... of course it's possible.
Yes. Light is just like radar, but at a higher frequency that makes it visible. But when you jam a signal like that, you are radiating, and you can be picked up for 360 degrees. You shine like a beacon in the night. You only do it if you know that you can jam everybody who may be taking a look. Otherwise, you take an ARM right smack in the antennae.
As I understand it, the major difficulty would be the constant adjustments required for angle, frequency, etc.
Actually, that's the easy part. The computers do that. :-)
Also, what if these antennae only produce a thin field around the aircraft? Not possible according to your knowledge?
Transmit visible light, and tell it to stop after 30 feet and just sit there? No. Not possible. Send out photons and tell them to circle around the plane? No. Not possible.
A car around which radar waves would flow like water around a stone.
That would be similar to a mirage effect if the light has turbulence due to atmospheric interference. I would not mind having a "predator" type shield.
additional supposition - those antannae, specifically, might have been specialized communication arrays, which would be classified on a stealth platform.
they go RS past a specific phase line, but presumably maintain RC when away from the combat area.
Oddly enough, Paddy potentiates the effect! I can achieve invisibility in half the time with two ounces of Paddy aside me pint. Must be some mystical trick of the leprechauns!
Francis, himself
So what are the legal ramifications of "accidentally" feeling up an invisible woman?
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