Linggo, Marso 09, 2014

The Cloak of Invisibility: Just a dream?

Maricella Delgado Valdivia (2013-55498)
BS Computer Science


INDIVIDUAL PROJECT
STS – THY

One of my dreams is to be able to be invisible at will. Maybe because I want to do things that are prohibited, or maybe do the things I love without anyone judging me. Yet we have this thought that it's just magic, that it's impossible, but we didn't remember the power of science. Maybe we cannot do it on our own, but what if you have an object that can make you invisible, perhaps a cloak?

I'm sure of it, that most of us know (or heard of) Harry Potter, and one of the magical things in this book/movie series is the Cloak of Invisibility. The moment I knew Harry had this, I questioned myself “Is this possible?”. How about you, did this question arise from your head? We might think it isn't, that it's just fiction but maybe science can give you an explanation through this video! (It's not from YouTube that's why it won't show here). In the video, a researcher used mirrors that are really small, but not small enough to work with visible light, that it make the light seem to pass through the object/person inside it but the truth is the light is that the light is beamed around the object/person. In another website, Physics.org, stated here is this, “To achieve the feat of 'cloaking' an object, they have developed what are known as metamaterials, some of which can bend electromagnetic radiation, such as light, around an object, giving the appearance that it isn't there at all”. But both the short video and the metamaterials only worked with long-wavelength radiation, especially microwaves.


But do you know a scientist who would just give up and be easily satisfied with the fact that it cannot work with visible light? Of course there are none. “Now, researchers at Boston University and Tufts University claim that they have come up with an invisibility cloak that works within the terahertz band – the radiation between infrared and radio wavelengths – but could be modified to work with visible light. Intriguingly, it is made out of silk.”, also from Physics.org, which we can see that parts of the nature of a scientist are perseverance, and dissatisfaction. One of the problems faced in this invisibility cloak is that the materials used are highly dispersive, and the light passed through these objects are partially absorbed thus making it not completely invisible but an opaque cloak. But the thing now is that the cloak of invisibility is not all magical, it is possible.
In roughly 5 years, technology will advance and I'm confident that researchers might be able to finally have a solution for this thought-to-be-fictional cloak. I'm not into the fact that this should be sold for random use, or even for people for war for this will just result in even more wars. I believe that this should be used for the common good. After all, science shouldn't be abused for selfish reasons, but science is used for the development of our world.


References

"How do 'invisibility cloaks' work?". physics.org. n.p, n.d. Web. 23 February 2014.

"How Invisibility Cloaks Work". howstuffworks. William Harris and Robert Lamb, n.d. Web. 23 February 2014.

"Cloak of invisibility". Wikipedia. Stephens, n.d. Web. 09 March 2014.

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