If you combine nanomaterials, lightwaves, and a supercomputer it’s possible to make an 18-centimeter tube invisible … to a microwave. Clearly this falls far short of the human hope of making an actual invisibility cloak, but it is an advancement in the science of cloaking objects, including airplanes or drones. For those who are interested in the progress we’re making towards invisibility, the Texas Advanced Computing Center has put up a video and blog post explaining new research in making things disappear.
The researchers at UT Austin are not alone in their quest to make stuff invisible, but the video does a great job explaining the science of sight, how things are currently being made invisible and how customized materials (called metamaterials by the researchers) could lead to light-wave scattering properties that could make your eyes glide right past an object in front of you. It actually works by creating wavelengths that cancel each other out, working in manner similar to how this Japanese speech-jamming gun works.
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