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Their device, called a spectral invisibility cloak, is the first to manipulate the color (or frequency) of the light waves that interact with an object, rendering it invisible.
"Our work represents a breakthrough in the quest for invisibility cloaking," study author José Azaña said in a news release.
Let's break this down, starting with light. There's something called the electromagnetic spectrum. It contains all the different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation, a certain kind of energy. X-rays, gamma rays, and radar all fall somewhere on this spectrum.
While you can't see an X-ray, your eyes can see one small range of frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum. We call this visible light. As mentioned, it's a range separated into what we perceive as colors, with violet at one end and red at the other. Some light sources contain more than one specific frequency. We call these broadband sources, and sunlight is one example.
When we "see" something, what we're really seeing is the interaction of these light frequencies and the object. When sunlight shines on a blue car, the car reflects the blue light frequency while all the other color frequencies simply pass through the object. Our eyes detect the reflected blue light, letting us see the blue car.
The INRS researchers' cloaking device takes advantage of this interaction. They describe an object that reflects only green light.
To make this object seem "invisible" to the human eye, they use a specially designed filter to temporarily shift the green frequencies in the broadband spectrum shining on the object to blue. Then, they use another filter to shift those frequencies back to green on the other side of the object.
The result? The human eye can't see the object.
Currently, the INRS researchers' cloaking device only works from one direction - the viewer's gaze needs to follow the path of the light, looking toward the object through the first filter.
However, Azaña claims the method could theoretically make an object invisible from every direction.
For now, the device could help secure telecommunications, which use broadband waves to transport data. Telecom companies could render certain frequencies along their fiber optic networks "invisible," preventing third-parties from using broadband light to spy on them.
So, while we still have a ways to go before we can all cosplay as the (really) Invisible Man at ComicCon, this complex cloaking contraption could potentially keep our data concealed in the meantime.
For some it is reality:as is the case with some scientists, this is their reality, a cloak of invisibility.
But I have news for them, it's already been accomplished, way back in 1986, by none other than Captain James T Kirk.
History Edit Early cloaking technology Edit Suliban cloaking device Humanity's earliest-known encounter with cloaking technology came in the year 1986 in the Bering Sea. Admiral James T. Kirk, having traveled back in time, de-cloaked the Klingon Bird-of-Prey he was commanding to waylay and frighten some whale hunters from killing two humpback whales.
Now it begs the question for me, are the scientists living in a real world or a world or make believe, do they really have this technology, derived from Romulian tchnoology
iThe Romulans were the first known race to develop the cloaking device stealth technology, first observed on Romulan mines and the Romulan Bird-of-Prey in 2152. (ENT: "Minefield