The first nerd who hits me over the head with his +5 Vorpal Sword while wearing one of these better run really, really fast. Harry Potter invisibility cloak 'within five years' By Roger Highfield (Filed: 26/05/2006) It may not be necessary to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in order to make an invisibility cloak like Harry Potter's, concludes a study published today by Sir John Pendry of Imperial College London. In the journal Science, Sir John and colleagues at Duke University in North Carolina describe how a cloaking device could work by making light waves flow around an object - just as water in a river flows undisturbed around a smooth rock. In principle, their invisibility cloak could be realised with artificial composite materials called "metamaterials," which could hide a person, or guide light around an ugly oil refinery which blocks a view. Sir John and colleagues believe they can warp light - a type of electromagnetic radiation - with the metamaterials, whose electromagnetic properties can be altered by manipulating their structure at near atomic dimensions. These materials could be "tuned" in such a way that when electromagnetic waves encountered the cloaking device they would produce neither a reflection nor a shadow, said Sir John. "Metamaterials can be designed to have properties difficult or impossible to find in nature," said Sir John. He added that a cloaking material might not take long to develop, assuming there is sufficient research. "If there is adequate funding, I'd have thought it would take in the order of five years," he said. This is the second cloaking device theory to be unveiled in as many months. Prof Graeme Milton, of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and Nicolae-Alexandru Nicorovici, of the University of Technology, Sydney, used materials with bizarre optical properties first postulated in 1968 by Victor Veselago, a physicist working in Moscow, to show how light might cancel itself out.
Why does Harry Potter get the mention here? There have been stories of cloaks of invisibilty at least as far back as the ancient Greeks. I wonder how many of those who recognize the Harry Potter reference would recognize Siegfried or Hades? Next thing you know, JK Rowling will get credit for thinking up wizards and dragons.
I'm a D&D geek, but this isn't my wet dream. My wet dream is a +5 chain shirt of heavy fortification. That way, I can retain my dex bonus and not be prone to critical hits or sneak attacks. I would also like a +3 keen vorpal b*stard sword and a belt of giant strength +6. By the way, who else thinks this thing won't be any better than a cloak of elvenkind?
When I played D & D my wet dream was Elf chicks in chainmail bustiers. I am very curious how these metamaterials work. Being more of a Star Trek geek than a D & D geek I read in the Physics of Star Trek that the 2 theories behind the cloaking device was generating an artificial gravitic field to warp light around the ship or creating a field that shifts the ship out of phase at the quantum level so that it doesn't react with ordinary matter or energy. Its already possible to create materials that can selectively turn transparent but how would that shield the person or thing inside it? That's great you have something that can suddenly turn invisible but all that means is that you would suddenly see the person inside the cloak since their molecules can't selectively be turned invisible.
The description from other articles claim the material lets light pass through like a fin through water. Much like how current stealth planes are made to reduce reflection of radar waves, if light can't reflect off an object, you can't see it.
