Invisibility Cloak : Is it possible?

Can you imagine, you have the ability to be invisible, what should you do?  Long, long ago, people always said it is ridiculous to be ‘unseen’, and they always said it just a myth or fairy tales. Anyone who are watching Harry Potter will also realized that the cloak that Harry’s used can be invisible, so, they cannot be detected by the other people, in one scene in that movie. (If I’m not mistaken, you can watch it in Harry Potter, The Sorcerer Stone.)

Is it possible to be invisible? (Please read it ‘invisible’ not ‘invincible’ because both words have different meaning.) I will show you some facts and innovation that are having done and still keep in progressing, to develop this type of technology. I guess it is right to begin with a little bit introductions about this technology.

There are a research from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering, demonstrated the first working ‘invisibility cloak’ by using metamaterials.¹

 Before we proceed, what is actually ‘metamaterials’?

Rodger M. Walser of the University of Texas has defined the ‘metamaterials’ as “macroscopic composites having a manmade, three-dimensional, periodic cellular architecture designed to produce an optimized combination, not available in nature, of two or more responses to specific excitation”.²

For this time being, ‘invisibility cloak’ is not completely done yet. It is admitted by the scientists at Duke University, as the metamaterials could render an object invisible by absorbing all the light, unfortunately, it is only effective in two dimensions and at microwave frequencies.³

 In another word, we could say that it is a ‘baby-step’, and the researches must be vigorously continuous to make it becomes reality in the future.

It shows us, this technology is still new and need a lot of effort for the innovation among the scientist. However, I am positively believe, this technology will be augmented used after decades of research.

In the future, you can be a magician; disappearing yourself only by having an invisible cloak. Do you really want to do it? 

References:

1)  www.futureforall.org/physics/invisibility_cloak.htm

2)  www.azonano.com/details.asp?ArticleID=1968

3) Michio Kaku, Small Scale Invisibility Cloaks,  bigthink.com/ideas/19268

Posted by Mohd Hasbullah Mohamad Faudzi