Boffins develop greenhouse invisible to night-vision goggles
Boffins in the States say they have designed a "glass cloak" which renders objects within it invisible in the infrared spectrum. Prof Elena Semouchkina and her colleagues developed the "cloak", which reportedly bends micron wavelengths around its interior. Micron-length waves are in the near infrared, the part of the …
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Applications in movies?
If you have an infrared(only)viewing vampire, he could be tricked?
Any bets...
that marijuana growers will be first to test this in real world?
These are not the plants you are looking for.
</hand wave> </jedi-voice>
Metamaterials are fascinating
although, i don't really think "metamaterial" is that good a name.. After all they are actual materials, just ones with unusual properties. But i suppose they have to be called something. Quantum physics in action 8-)
People who live in glass houses
So all we need to defeat this technology is a Predator style face mask which can scan in all bands from infrared to ultraviolet.
Now why can they not invent THAT.
Mud is all you need...
just paint your greenhouse with it and ugly-chops won't be able to see you.
Just be ready to get underwater when his thermonuclear wristwatch goes off.
The Major Players...
...in the greenhouse covering market offer infrared reflecting plastic in film and sheets.
The selling point being reflecting heat back into the structure. This would perform about the same, I imagine.
thermal invisibility shack!
I have wondered about the possibility of snipers having their own "thermal invisibility shack" or outfit. Blocking the radiated heat seems straightforward-ish, the suit could be water cooled. BUT, where does the heat go? Clearly a hollow-tree exhaust is ineffective! In fact ANY kind of exhaust is a give-away, so a means of collecting heat for later release is needed. Is there any way to achieve this?
(untitled)
Surely diving in a river to cool off, then rolling in the mud on the bank is enough?
Works for Arnie.
Amazing!
If I understood correctly, they say that I could be invisible by hiding in my shed at night!
Will they patent this discovery?
Why boffins??
I've just noticed the prevalence of the word boffin in Lewis Page's generally entertaining articles. Why does he insist on using this word so frequently when referring to scientists? As far as I'm concerned it's akin to calling all IT professionals geeks or journalists journo's. It hardly portrays scientists in a positive light. Okay, sometimes it might be deserved but please give the poor people a break.
because
It's actually an affectionate term of respect and an aknowledgement of scientific or engineering expertise.
The wikipedia discussion page actually has a nice piece by a US boffin.
Ahem...
Nothing to see here, move along now, nothing to see now, move along...
Ahem. Sorry, I'll just grab my coat... :-)
Thermal Imagers not needed
You never drunk 20 pints and tried to walk around with a shed on your head.
Noisy to say the least!
This just in...
Boffins simulate almost-invisible shed using computers!
...in other news - dark looming storm clouds precipitate rain in England
Computermabob
Boffins also predicted Holland would win the World Cup using a computer (as featured in El Reg - you now owe me £100)
Lie's, damned lies and statistical anomolies :)
Not just the glass
From the abstract it seems to have some grating patten cut into it. Presumably if it were just the material they could whip up a (small) batch of there own and. Gratings normally need to be *below* the wavelength of what they are trying to affect. So we are in wafer fab territory (not *deep* in, Mercury vapour lamp at c300nm should be up for the job) but glass etching is typically Hydrofloric Acid which is *very* nasty, unless you go with an electrochemical method (amazingly glass *can* be electrochemically machined and there are several papers on it from Korean and Japanese researchers).
shhhh!
don't mention sheds else the shedii will be swarming all over this
Excellent!
Now my tomatoes will be safe from nocturnal night vision goggle-wearing tomato theives!
Aha!
So all I need is to take a thermally invisible greenhouse and put it *inside* a visibly invisible tin shed and I can sit inside the whole thing all invisible like.
Wait.....Ultraviolet you say?
Mine's the one that looks suspiciously like an enormous set of Matroska dolls coated in radar-reflective paint, or it would if you could see it.....
Meanwhile, in Sadville,,,
There's already a way of doing this in Second Life, with something called an "invisiprim".
All that glass on the battlefield, just think what that will do when a blast bomb goes off.
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