You hear about it all the time; celebrities lashing out, filing lawsuits against overzealous paparazzi who won’t leave them alone. Imagine how much juicier the Hollywood tabloids would be, however, if those photogra-stalkers could follow their prey without being seen?
Of course, obsessed fans hoping to tail Britney Spears won’t be the only people excited to hear about the latest breakthrough in theoretical technology. It will likewise please devotees of Harry Potter’s famous cloak and admirers of James Bond’s disappearing Aston Martin to hear that mathematician Graeme Milton of the University of Utah may have devised a theory to make objects invisible.
Milton and three collaborators have built on the work of physicist John Pendry, suggesting that superlenses could be the answer to all of our concealment needs. A superlens is a device that sends any light that comes its way in the opposite direction, essentially canceling it out. When placed a certain distance from an object, the light reflected by the object would be sent back, and the object would become invisible. The idea recalls the functionality of sound-canceling headphones, only with light.
Still, don’t expect to see ads for these in your celeb fanzines any time soon. Superlenses are as of yet restricted to the theoretical realm; Milton and his colleagues simply have a mathematical proof that particles would become invisible a certain distance from a superlens. Furthermore, critics suggest that works for particles on paper won’t translate for larger objects in practice, and it is debatable whether or not the superlens itself would remain visible and defeat the purpose altogether.
The good news is that Milton and Co. seem to think invisibility cloaks are just as cool as I do, and they’re a lot better at theoretical math than I am. It may be some time before we can follow Britney right into her house, but in the meantime, I hear the military has some pretty cool camouflage gear.
Photo by Graeme Milton from CNN.com.
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