Cloaking
Monday, March 8, 2010
Blog entry by Ambrea Kuhn, The Leonardo's Intern
Humans see only a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, and we are "see" an object when light bounces off of it into our eyes. To mimic or create invisibility, there are several ways you can can disrupt the process of "seeing" an object.
Let's start with this simplest: camouflage. Animals, soldiers, and hunters use it everyday. Wilderness settings are relatively easy to blend into, but what if you want to blend into a more complicated terrain? You could mimic artist and extreme camouflage-er, Liu Bolin, who paints himself to blend in with his surroundings.
Check out more of Bolin's art here.
But what if you need to blend in at a moment's notice? The folks over at the Tachi Laboratory at the University of Tokyo have developed an invisibility cloak of sorts. The cloak films objects behind you and projects them onto your jacket so you will blend into any background.
These are all just optical illusions, but scientists are well on the way to true invisibility. To make an object truly invisible, the waves need to pass through an object with no interference. Scientists from all over the world have been developing different ways to make objects invisible. Most of these researchers focus on meta-materials that let waves pass through with little interference.
But researchers at the University of Utah have taken a different approach to developing cloaking devices, and University of Utah mathematics professor Graeme Milton hopes to achieve the ultimate goal of true invisibility from all visible light. Milton's team has an object that generates waves to cloak an object from oncoming waves. The technology may also be used to protect buildings from earthquakes by deflecting seismic waves.
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Labels: art, events, technology, university
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