Invisibility cloak using calcite demonstrated

[gary]

Researchers at MIT and the University of Birmingham have independently
published two different papers, one in Physical Review Letters and the other in
Nature Communications, where they have shown relatively large objects can be
rendered invisible to the naked eye using the material calcite.

BBC News item here including video -
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12338447

Article in Discover Magazine here (free) -
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80...k-to-crystals/

Paper in Nature Communications here (subscription only but abstract available) -
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal...comms1176.html

Originally Posted by Science News

“It’s not a Harry Potter cloak,” says Shuang Zhang, a physicist at the University of Birmingham in England and one of the Nature Communications study coauthors. The cloak works only under one light polarization. And while it works at all angles, it’s not three-dimensional. It only cloaks when Zhang aims the light source dead-on at the crystals. But, he says, scaling up to 3-D isn’t too big of a leap from 2-D. Zhang imagines similar technology one day concealing submarines on the sea floor.

Science News article here -
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/gene...t_the_big_time

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

While searching for a video that I could download the video in the link doesn't work with Video Download helper I noticed that this IIS thread came 2nd above the BBC story we must be getting some street cred for searches.

[wavelandscott (Scott)]

Originally Posted by supernova1965

While searching for a video that I could download the video in the link doesn't work with Video Download helper :

Am I the only one who sees the humour in not being able to see a video on a cloaking device...

[floyd_2 (Dean)]

I'm suspicious that some of my tools might be under an invisibility cloak somewhere in my house. Pity the lawn mower isn't under it too!

Dean

[Waxing_Gibbous (Peter)]

I suspect you could download the video but not see it.