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Saturday, January 24, 2009

Can you see me now???

I wanna get me one of these when they are ready!  This group at Duke engineers has succeeded at creating a cloaking device that is significantly more improved over their initial device made back in 2006.  It basically works by bending electromagnetic waves (e.g. light) in a manner that makes the object invisible.  Think of the mirage on the road that you see on a hot summer's day or when you rub your eyes and the Cardinals are still playing in the Super Bowl.  Very hot indeed!  Even more impressive was the fact that they made the new device in only 9 days whereas the original device took 4 months.  It also can bend a wider spectrum of electromagnetic waves, so presumably, you would be invisible to those infrared cameras.  Ideal if you are hiding in the forest like in The Fugitive.  Or, if you are Paris Hilton making a movie.  The device was about 20 inches by 4 inches and less than an inch high and made up of 10,000 individual pieces in parallel rows.  A mathematical algorithm helped them determine how to put this all together and it seems as though this algorithm was the key to success of the project.  Fascinating!

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