• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Science closing in on cloak of invisibility

CaptainHawk1

Commodore
As I disclaimed in my post about transparent aluminum, if this is something that is already known about or isn't a big deal or if I'm just a fucking idiot for posting this "rubbish" in the first place according to the big brains around here, I apologize for being so offensive to your intelligence and I'll get back on the short bus where I belong. :techman:

If not, enjoy.

Again I just though it was neat.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D95NOJL01&show_article=1


-Shawn :borg:
 
They had to mention Harry Potter and not the Romulans. I bet that bugged a few of the scientists as well.
 
There is a good possibility that Potter is more socially acceptable compared to Trek.
They also might have wanted to avoid making Trek associations on purpose so they wouldn't seem repetitive.
There are numerous possibilities anyway.
 
There is a good possibility that Potter is more socially acceptable compared to Trek.

That is disturbing that fantasy revolving around wizards and magic is more socially acceptable han fantasy that revolves around science.

-Shawn :borg:
 
They had to mention Harry Potter and not the Romulans. I bet that bugged a few of the scientists as well.

But to be fair, this really is a "cloak" - a piece of wardrobe.

When they can "cloak" an airplane in flight, then we will have a parallel to the cloaking devices seen in Star Trek.
 
There is a good possibility that Potter is more socially acceptable compared to Trek.

That is disturbing that fantasy revolving around wizards and magic is more socially acceptable han fantasy that revolves around science.

-Shawn :borg:

Religion for example falls pretty much into the category of fantasy in my opinion, and numerous people seem to prefer THAT to common sense and science.
 
Let's just hope our government doesn't use this technology on American civilians. The government could even break into a house 'cloaked', plant evidence on people they don't like and then arrest them for it.

Who would believe invisible agents did it.
 
There is a good possibility that Potter is more socially acceptable compared to Trek.

That is disturbing that fantasy revolving around wizards and magic is more socially acceptable han fantasy that revolves around science.

-Shawn :borg:

Religion for example falls pretty much into the category of fantasy in my opinion, and numerous people seem to prefer THAT to common sense and science.
Don't confuse Faith with religion and who the fuck asked you anyway?

-Shawn :borg:
 
While this research does show some promise, it's unlikely it will ever produce the H. G. Wells kind of invisibility seen in fiction. We're not actually talking about turning something invisible, but about surrounding it with a material that bends light around it. If that material were in something like a cloak or suit, it would probably move around too much to create a consistent bending effect. You'd get too many distortions and aberrations of the diverted light. Also, just because this can work on a few different wavelengths at once doesn't necessarily mean it can be extrapolated to something that can handle the entire visible spectrum at once.

The media always play up the sensationalist sci-fi ideas in reports like this, but realistically, the applications are likely to be more mundane -- things like making buildings and overpasses "transparent" to cell phone signals, cooling structures by shunting infrared around them, stuff that's practical and useful but not sexy or exciting or scary. Maybe, say, it could be used to coat the pillars in a sports stadium so that people sitting behind them could see through them. It might potentially allow some degree of stealth for aircraft, but never across the whole EM spectrum at once -- if it were stealthed against radar, it would probably be perfectly visible to the naked eye, and vice-versa, because the wavelengths are so different that you'd need structures on wholly different scales to pull it off.
 
That is disturbing that fantasy revolving around wizards and magic is more socially acceptable han fantasy that revolves around science.

-Shawn :borg:

Religion for example falls pretty much into the category of fantasy in my opinion, and numerous people seem to prefer THAT to common sense and science.
Don't confuse Faith with religion and who the fuck asked you anyway?

-Shawn :borg:

Back off on the pointless insult.
I was merely making an evidenced/backed-up statement to your response.
Also, I wasn't confusing anything.
I clearly stated that some people often resort to religion instead of science which a lot of the time (but not always) ends in them making stupid judgments/assumptions/decisions.
Point was that the majority of the population prefers simplistic and less 'brainy' things.
Let's face it ... a lot of people love to generalize about Trek and proclaim it's for geeks.
Fantasy doesn't put you in that crowd because it's more socially acceptable.

Trek can be used as a great point of reference for theoretical possibilities in terms of real-life science, but because of it's status in society, people either keep quiet, ignore it, or plainly don't know anything about related subjects to avoid the 'labeling'.
 
Let's face it ... a lot of people love to generalize about Trek and proclaim it's for geeks.
Fantasy doesn't put you in that crowd because it's more socially acceptable.

If that's true, it's a very recent development. I remember when Dungeons and Dragons-type stuff was widely considered to be lower on the totem pole (by people whose opinions weren't exactly important to me)
 
Heck, there are still people out there who assume that D&D is Satanic or that it makes kids go on violent rampages.

Still, it depends on what kind of fantasy you're talking about. "Magic realism," fiction in modern-day settings but dealing with paranormal phenomena, mysticism, and the like, seems to be a lot more popular in the mass media than science fiction.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top