Science fiction turned into reality? by Zuzana Zelenakova

Do you remember novel by Victorian writer H. G. Wells called “The Invisible Man”? Scientist that becomes invisible after taking a special potion, or Harry Potter and his invisibility cloak. And what about the Invisible woman Susan Strom from the Fantastic Four?… scientists have been fascinated by this idea for a long time trying to make some progress. Now it seems the right time has come for a step forward. Scientists came across a material that could make objects invisible. At the University of California in Berkeley they have engineered material that has the ability to bend light around three dimensional objects and thus making them “invisible”. The research is funded by the American military that obviously could benefit most from this technology using it to shield its vehicles, stealth tanks, warships or aircraft from the enemy eyes. And how such a miracle works? Well, it is similar to the idea of water flowing around the rock. The material produces negative refraction of visible light, which is not absorbed or reflected by the object and we see only light from behind it, not the object itself. The material is called metamaterial and is said to have “extraordinary optical properties that do not exist in nature,” therefore it has to be created at the atomic and nano level. The researchers also write in journal Science that “they can alter the propagation of electromagnetic waves, resulting in negative refraction, subwavelength imaging and cloaking.” The details about the research are to be revealed in journals Nature and Science later this week. So people are another inch closer to Stark Trek, aren´t they? However, there are also other researches dealing with this matter. One of them for example considers using so called plasmons, which obstruct the visible light and other radiations from the surface of the object.


related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20080810/sc_livescience/newmaterialcouldmakeobjectsinvisible;_ylt=Al0biMifafKl.IGwexTOs82s0NUE

by Zuzana Zelenakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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