Invisibility cloak modified to make you see things that aren't there
By Laura June 
posted July 7th 2009 10:54AM
posted July 7th 2009 10:54AM
The ever-evolving tale of the invisibility cloak makes us want to hang our heads in our hands sometimes, so fraught with frustrations does it seem. Well, another chapter's been added to the tome: researchers at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology have devised a way to extend the invisibility principle, allowing an illusion to sit in place of the invisible object. So, say you wanted to use an invisibility cloak to mask the presence of your bottle of beer on the table, the new concept -- or 'shroud of lies' as we call it -- would enable you to make it appear that there was a glass of water sitting there, in place of the beer. So how does that work, exactly? Normal, every day invisibility cloaks bend light around a central cavity, whereas the team has now worked out mathematical rules for bending light in other ways, allowing a material to be designed to bend light in the exact way a spoon would, so that the light hitting the material would distort, making it look like a spoon was there. Theoretically, all of this is rather simple and quite sound, though it turns out that there are numberless mechanical obstacles standing in the way of producing such devices. The new illusion-producing device would have to be capable of working without interfering with the invisibility cloak itself (which, if you recall, also can't properly be said to exist). There's no word on when any of this will ever come to fruition of course, but we remain always hopeful.
Beer can act as an invisibility cloak. It can hide ugly.
Hiding beer with invisibility cloaks? That's pretty palliative. A better solution is to drink the beer and dispose of the bottle by means of window. Or wench.
You clearly saw something else when you read OneLoves comment
AMERICA, F*CK YEA!
You want to f*ck america?
Right now? Probably North Korea.
forget this invisibility altering thing...just gimme my v1.0 invisibility cloak, thats all i want.
Hong Kong FTW.
There is no spoon.
That's the whole point of the article.
The cake is a lie?!
dammit! that's what i came to post!
That's nothing.
Tech blogs post stuff like that all the time!
It's called: Vaporware! ;)
This is a holographic projection, similar to what is used in Star Trek to make ships look like different ships or Federation spy stations look like rock faces (See Star Trek: Insurrection).
TMI :)
its not projection at all, its taking ambient light and creating a visual from that.
How is this any different than shrooms?
We should be working to erect SEP fields not invisibility fields. After all its sooo much easier to to make it Somebody Elses Problem
^.-.~
You know, what you just said is *almost* identical to what you're mum is working on.
PKD came up with this a while ago!
Scanner Darkly anyone?
Pics or it didn't happen.
Yeah great idea captain. I'll prove to you it happened; just let me go take a picture of a beer, and them move it and put a glass o water in it's place and take another picture. Vôila, invisibility cloak proof for the internets.
Facepalm.
Pics of an invisible cloak, GENIUS
Sorry i know its onabout replacing objects...
Does this mean I can finally be with my waifu!?
Why would you want to hide what you are? People love you and dammit you're good enough.
you don't get out much do you?
I simply have a stable ego. Good luck on yours.
Got Stuart Smalley all the way to Congress didn't it?
How about at least a little meat to this to this teaser story for those of us who wish to learn more? Like the names of the researchers or what department or anything... I know I can figure this out eventually, but I guess this is just a hey that sounds cool kind of thread and not meant to really inform.
Here is the manuscript:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.1484v1
It is fairly mathematical, but figure 2 shows how the scattered fields of dielectric (non-metallic) spoon are made to look like the scattered fields of a metallic coffee cup.
The idea is interesting, but the implementation is pretty unlikely.
Wow, there are some really intelligent comments here.
Oh wait I just took the illusion-producing device off.
I want to see "A Scanner Darkly" style body suits. That would be awesome.
How about they just get a working invisibility cloak out the door first before trying to mod it.
Exactly. They're just spouting ideas, like a couple of college students who just discovered patents.
The KIRF boys are going to love this one
Is this the same "shroud of lies" the government is using every time they open their mouths?
Why can I see this technology being written into season 6 of Lost? Maybe the Island was never actually there....
The Somebody elses problem Field.......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Else%27s_Problem
The trick is to realize, there is no spoon.
Oh its possible.
The beer is a lie.
Beer never lies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Women do.
;)
Can we stop working on invisibility cloaks. Give me shields any day!
wake me up when they come up with a invincibility cloak..
Yep, it's the exact same shroud that got laid on Jesus' body too.
It's a joke and God laughed with me (or at me, it's just too hard to know what a(nother) deity is thinking.)
whoops!!!!!!!!!!!
That was supposed to be in response to alansky
wow
what movie is the screen shot from?
I would venture to guess that it is the Invisible Man..,.
Son of the Invisible Man (from "Amazon Women on the Moon"): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2D-T6O7myQ Fantastic. Thank you, Ed Begley Jr.