Want To Make A Small Object Invisible?

[ICanSleepWhenI'mDead]

Don't laugh - - this is real:

 

http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/15/3/033037/article

 

GENERAL SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY

Introduction and background. Widespread research interest on the topics of invisibility and cloaking has been focused in recent years on metamaterial covers with precise bulk parameters such that they may divert impinging rays or cancel their scattered fields. Abundant challenges in translating the theoretically required homogeneous parameters into practical devices have usually led to impractically thick covers, which impose severe limitations in bandwidth and sensitivity to imperfections.

 

Main results. We have experimentally verified a new route to render a 3D object standing in free space invisible to radio waves, without requiring a bulk metamaterial cover. We have instead applied the 'mantle cloaking' technique, showing that ordinary 3D objects can be cloaked in all directions and from all observer's positions using a single, ultrathin patterned 'metasurface' conformal to the object.

 

* * * * * * * *

Wider implications. In principle this technique may be extended to visible frequencies; in fact metasurfaces are easier to realize than metamaterials in optics. However, the object size that can be efficiently cloaked with this method scales with the wavelength, so when applied to optical frequencies we may be able to efficiently stop the scattering of only micrometer-sized objects.

[mead107]

Sure it is

[Beerball]

Want To Make A Small Object Invisible?

My wife's been able to do this for years.

[Mr Info]

My wife's been able to do this for years.

Kudos - it takes a big man to admit his poker is small.

[DC Tom]

Kudos - it takes a big man to admit his poker is small.

 

He could have been referring to his paycheck.

 

Or simply his dignity.

[KD in CA]

Kudos - it takes a big man to admit his poker is small.

 

He's been married a long time, so it's really just regressing toward the mean.