Nothing to fear ; . . except fear itself ? right?

Things that go bump in the night, that shadow that seemed to move just at the edge of your periferal vision, things that go missing and later reappear where you've already looked, sound familiar?

You are just like everyone else in this there are things that are odd and things that seem not to make any sence, and of course there are some things, unexplainable things that freak you out.

Deborah Smith
April 5, 2009
An invisibility cloak has long been the the stuff of science fiction, but fantasy is about to become reality.

The British scientist who pioneered the concept, Sir John Pendry, expects a cloak that can conceal an object from prying eyes to be unveiled within months.

Harry Potter need not worry just yet. His wizard's cloak, which makes people disappear, is still too complicated and costly for Muggle scientists to emulate.

"At the moment we don't have the technology to do that," Professor Pendry, of Imperial College London, told the Herald . The first man-made cloak will be more like an invisibility "carpet", he said. Tuck a tiny object underneath it, and it will seemingly disappear because the bump the object makes will be hidden from view with an artificial mirage.

Its development will be a startling demonstration of the potential of metamaterials - a radical new technology that could lead to other applications, including barriers to prevent waves damaging the shore, acoustic cloaks to reduce noise, stealth systems for the military, and faster telecommunications.

Metamaterials have microscopic structures that give them properties not found in nature because of the unusual way the structures interact with light or other electromagnetic waves.

They can be designed to hide things by bending radiation around an object as if it were not there, "like water flowing around a stone", said Professor Pendry, who will give a public talk on invisibility at the University of Sydney on Wednesday.

He was the first to think up these new materials a decade ago. In 2004, to "spice up" one of his mathematically dense lectures in the US, he mentioned Harry Potter. "I said one of the interesting things they could do is hide things."

Other researchers in the audience, led by David Smith of Duke University, took his message to heart. "They went back and built the darn thing."

In 2006 Professor Smith revealed the first cloak, which steered radiation around a copper cylinder, making it invisible to microwave detection.

"I am optimistic work in progress will produce an optical cloak in the next six months," Professor Pendry said.

Sydney Science Forum on invisibility, Wednesday April 8, 5.30 pm, Bookings 9351 3021, ssf@science.usyd.edu.au .

If this does become reality it won't be before they either only make it available to police and military or only make available some device to allow police and military to see someone if they are "invisible"

I just thought it looked like fun.
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