European researchers are perfecting the invisibility cloak that the Japanese invented. It may take a long time, but some day we may stumble over things that we don’t see because, to us, they’re just NOT THERE.
German scientists were able to do this by covering a tiny bump in a layer of gold, which prevented it from being detected by infrared light. In PhysOrg.com, Randolph E. Schmid describes the new cloak as “a structure of crystals with air spaces in between, sort of like a woodpile, that bends light, hiding the bump, which is so tiny that it can only be seen with a magnifying glass, in the gold layer beneath.”
Hiding larger items (like a person or fighter plane) is in the future, however. Schmid quotes researcher Tolga Ergin as saying, “Cloaking larger items with that technology is not really feasible,” but “Other fabrication techniques might lead to larger cloaks.”
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