Apologies to Harry Potter, but we seem to be on the verge (I mean, just barely at the verge) of developing an invisibility gadget.Yes, that's right -- invisibility. Like a Klingon Bird of Prey, the effect is the same: to hide the user from sight. While one mostly sees such technology being used for military purposes in books and movies, there are some applications that are grounded in reality. (Really?)
One approach to creating a cloaking device is using something called a superlens, which has what's called a negative refraction index. This allows it to bend electromagnetic waves back upon themselves, in effect, using interference to render an object invisible.
Yes, indeed! Graeme Milton, of the University of Utah, is working on mathematical models for superlenses. Thus far, the technology is not shaping up to be something that would be feasible for hiding something large, like naval destroyers, but he's seen it numerically -- not in practice, but in a theoretical proof that collections of particles become invisible.
Lots more explaining to do, so read more at DailyTech.
(And thanks to HarryPotterFanClub.com for the image.)]]>