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See the original image at technology.newscientist.com —

Anti-invisibility cloak gives vision to the invisible

technology.newscientist.com — The 'anti-cloak' could overcome one major limitation of the invisibility cloaks being designed and built in physics laboratories across the world: when you're invisible from the outside, the outside is invisible to you.

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  • solld3th, on 09/04/2008, -0/+29lol see again, just poke a hole in it, no one would care if there was a floating eyeball
    • Aklflash, on 09/04/2008, -2/+1In the next Harry Potter, is he going to get an anti-invisibility cloak
    • megamod, on 09/04/2008, -2/+3In the next Harry Potter, is he going to poke a hole through his cloak?

      I could think of one or 2 dirty jewish jokes in there...
    • flamingduck, on 09/04/2008, -0/+7Dugg for floating eyeballs.
    • stinkybinky, on 09/04/2008, -1/+0aww... that was my solution. not fair. it was my original idea, not yours.
    • thcobbs, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Well, he already poked a hole in one thing... and hopefully Ron isn't too mad about it.
    • BaoUnit, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2LOL, at first I didn't think the hole was for the eyeball
  • EatChex89, on 09/04/2008, -2/+10Am I the only one who just doesn't get it?

    It's like the whole "not not not not not" thing.

    But what the hell?
    • AchaIemoipas, on 09/04/2008, -4/+13There's not much to get.

      For every invention that does something, there's another that screws it up.

      Guns: bulletproof jackets: armor penetrating bullets: armor penetrating bullet proof jackets: knife.
      • 1337Einstein, on 09/04/2008, -0/+21That isn't the issue they're seeking to resolve here. The purpose is not to discover or expose cloaked objects, people, etc., but to permit whatever is cloaked to be able to receive incoming light, which would be necessary to see.
      • AchaIemoipas, on 09/04/2008, -10/+2And I'm not typing, I'm just hitting the right keys on my keyboard in order to make sentences.
      • AchaIemoipas, on 09/04/2008, -0/+15Lol, just realized what you were saying.

        Excuse my dumbassery.
      • jj101, on 09/04/2008, -0/+7Well done Einstein! Thats the first time I've ever said that in a comment without being sarcastic.
      • vypergts, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3I had to do a double-take because the headline made me think this was from theOnion.
      • jikmo, on 09/04/2008, -2/+0no, the analogy you made doesn't work

        It's not like bullet : bulletproof jacket. That would be if you found some way to scramble the light around an invisible person to make them visible. But they'd probably look really dim and fuzzy and a bit distorted. That's also how the outside world would look to them, so no good.

        This would instead be like making a laser that turns the bullet into air so that the bullet effectively doesn't exist anymore (very little waste left over, a small amount of dust maybe). The anti-cloaking device doesn't just make the invisible object visible, it bends the light so that it effectively turns into tinted glass.

        Good work guys.
    • zantos420, on 09/04/2008, -0/+13if you have an invisibility cloak, it bends light around you; so if you were to try and observe in or out, the light bending would cause you to not be able to see what was on the other side of the cloak, looking either in or out.
      the anti-cloak, as they call it, would allow the person inside (who is otherwise unable to peer out) to see what was on the otherside, effectively creating what we really think of when we think of an invisibility cloak; the ability to only change the fact others cannot see you.
    • ATLien74, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Ow....


      Ow.


      -Butters
  • JCS007, on 09/04/2008, -9/+3In Soviet Russia, invisibility ... wait. huh?
    • josephbloseph, on 09/04/2008, -0/+16In Soviet Russia, invisibility can't not see you?
  • xtothepowerofx, on 09/04/2008, -11/+5sweet.. i got a closet full of anti-invisibility-invisibility clothes (aka clothes)

    and no... i chose not to read the article based on the quality of the graphic shown
    • 4rp4n3t, on 09/04/2008, -1/+3Don't judge a book by it's cover - the article is New Scientist...
      • xtothepowerofx, on 09/04/2008, -1/+3sry.. cant get behind scientific diagrams that use exclamation points.. it ain't grade 4
      • 4rp4n3t, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Fair enough - it is a particularly ***** diagram...
    • NuFadZoo, on 09/04/2008, -0/+4Science hasn't evolved past cave drawings yet.
  • TraumaPony, on 09/04/2008, -6/+2This is cool. I can't wait until I can buy one and... What the ***** would I do with it :X
    • 4rp4n3t, on 09/04/2008, -1/+8Seriously?! I can think of many possibilities...Of course, secreting myself invisibly in the female showers at the gym wouldn't be one of them though - oh no, no, no...
    • latrosicarius, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2"But a perfect invisibility cloak guides rays so effectively that none reaches the object within, keeping it in total darkness"

      If they can do it with infrared light, you could maybe block heat. use it as a refrigerator
  • tomega, on 09/04/2008, -8/+3Wow, and what happens when they came up with anti-anti-invisibility cloak?
  • anagoge, on 09/04/2008, -1/+26This title makes my head hurt.
    • MariusAgricola, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1The whole article makes my head hurt :/
    • donttaseme, on 09/05/2008, -0/+1the title just means that it cures reverse blindness.
  • orangederange, on 09/04/2008, -9/+4it wont be long before they invent the anti-anti-invisiblity cloak...
  • ChileanGoD, on 09/04/2008, -7/+4It's what we call either a sonar, radar or heat vision.
  • michaelphw, on 09/04/2008, -5/+3Would it be easier to get those thermal vision goggles?
    • drakenlot, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2Doesn't matter, because the invisibility cloak doesn't allow ANYTHING to go in or out, which is the problem that this is trying to solve.

      Basically, before this, anything outside the cloak is invisible to whatever in inside the cloak, you'd only see endless darkness.
  • o0joshua0o, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2This is why SEP fields are so much better.
  • Ninnux, on 09/04/2008, -1/+8The Klingons figured this out long ago.
  • drakenlot, on 09/04/2008, -2/+9This is really interesting, I never paid mcuh attention to invisibility cloaks because of that problem, but this sounds like it would work.

    But the article makes it sound like it would cancel the invisibility cloak completely, which makes no sense as to why wear two cloaks that cancel each other out. The documentation they link sounds more liek a one-way mirror, the kind interrogation rooms use.
  • bstew22, on 09/04/2008, -3/+12http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/08090 ...

    "While an invisibility cloak would bend light around an object, any region that came into contact with the anti-cloak would guide some light back so that it became visible"

    so, all i have to do is find the invisible person, and then touch my anti-inivisibility cloak to their cloak, without them KILLING me first. there are no flaws to this plan.
  • HonestAbe, on 09/04/2008, -3/+10Guys, these "invisibility cloaks" appearing in the news lately are just ***** sensationalistic journalism. Journalists don't understand the actual scientific discoveries being made, so they make stuff up.
    • drakenlot, on 09/04/2008, -3/+1This stuff is real dumbass.

      Yes, it is oversenationalized by the media though, since they always compare it to Harry Potter.
  • nyx210, on 09/04/2008, -0/+14If you look at the image long enough, you'll realize that it isn't very useful for explaining the actual concept.
    • stinkybinky, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3i noticed that myself. also, the verbiage they use in the article to explain the concept doesn't work very well either.
  • BXRWXR, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2Is anyone working on "sleeve of wizard"?
  • cornking, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3am i the only one who read this and thought it was from theonion?
    • mablung, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2first thing I thought as well. It is the wording of the title.
  • FeloniusMonkey, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3RTFA folks!
  • ShadowPhoenix11, on 09/04/2008, -0/+5wait, if the cloak is invisibly, how do you see it to make it?
    • stinkybinky, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1it's not invisible until you turn it on... duh...

      but that's when you run into the problem of remembering where you put it after you're done using it.
    • SkippyDoorknob, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2And you thought it was bad when you dropped a contact lens on the floor!
    • diggydougie, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1You sprinkle powder on it. You don't see the cloak but you do see the powder.
  • blaker00, on 09/04/2008, -1/+1they already have that, heat imagery.
  • dmark77, on 09/04/2008, -1/+1Horrible film.
  • LupeFiasco, on 09/04/2008, -2/+2Though the the invention is cool, and is every sci-fi geeks dream come true(mine included.) I'm really worried about the way this technology is gonna be used. It is only a matter of time before governments and the military get their hands on this, or have they already?
    Governments could monitor people without them even having the slightest clue. It is like CCTV to the Nth degree.
  • leladax, on 09/04/2008, -0/+5what does it disenchant to.
  • Zhang5, on 09/04/2008, -1/+2I wonder what it would look like if you were under the invisibility cloak and everything around you was invisible.I mean like, would you just see nothing at all? white light? how does that work, the whole world being invisible? o.O
    • stinkybinky, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1FTA:

      "But a perfect invisibility cloak guides rays so effectively that none reaches the object within, keeping it in total darkness – a disadvantage if invisibility cloaks are ever to be used to shield tanks, steer microwaves in space or hide humans."

      go stand in your basement and turn the lights off. and any other light emitting device you have down there. then close your eyes real tight, and you'll have an idea of what it would look like in a cloak that completely covers you.
  • Princeamor, on 09/04/2008, -3/+2But doesn't the anti invisibility cloak mean that they would be able to see them again?? WTF?
  • Somedude2137, on 09/04/2008, -1/+1gentlemen.
  • GetItBuilt, on 09/04/2008, -1/+2For those comments where there is no belief in the invisibly cloak, let me point out that Nano-technology has opened the door to many new frontiers. To review the story published by a universities findings view this:

    http://digg.com/hardware/Carnegie_Mellon_Researche ...

    Then you can start to see how this whole process is possible. Although it might not be here today, they had to say the same thing about a phone people carry in their pocket or a car that could go 100 mph. All things that are basic now, but once thought of to be impossible. Please never limit the human mind.
  • eq2s, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3A practical way to see outside an invisibility cloak would be to equip the wearer with goggles that allow the wearer to see part of the light spectrum that the cloak does not bend. For example; assuming the cloak only bends visible light, the wearer could wear infra-red goggles.
    • wunksta, on 09/04/2008, -0/+6but then it would be useless against those that use the same goggles correct?
    • eq2s, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3Correct, but those people would need to know there is someone wearing an invisibility cloak and have the goggles. This would be unlikely in some situations.
  • toyrifle1, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1When using invisible cloaks, do what some blind folks do, whistle to "see". Or would the suit cancel out incoming sound waves?
    • kernel16, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Sound is just vibration transmitted in air/wte, if there's air/wte inside the field, then I don't see why it won't.
    • BlaqReaper, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1I think the point of invisibility is to be unnoticed. It would then make it pointless to go whistling everywhere.
  • jr93087, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2I'm still searching for the Onion logo lurking somewhere in the corner
  • GodsTwin, on 09/04/2008, -1/+1K wait so now Harry Potter can't use his cloak?
  • consciousNOT, on 09/04/2008, -1/+0I thought it said anti-invisibility *****.
  • myt29, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2You guys need reading comprehension 101.
  • xxgracefallenxx, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2mind = blown. who honestly would have ever though we'd even be seriously writing about an actual working invisibility cloak in science journals. I know it's a very long shoot to even make the initial cloak let alone the anti-invisibility cloak to make it useful for every day humans but.. just wow. awesome.
  • Milstead1979, on 09/04/2008, -0/+2Thanks for digging this article ... I didn't see it ...
  • BlaqReaper, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3My solution would be to mount a tiny translucent camera onto the cloak (maybe near the ends) where it would be the least conspicuous (Like a tiny speck on the floor and not some tiny thing floating in mid air). Then you could have goggles that can transmit what the camera sees to you. At least that sounds more feasible than an anti-invisible cloak.
  • DulcetTone, on 09/04/2008, -0/+3re: when you're invisible from the outside, the outside is invisible to you.

    Ostriches discovered this EONS ago
  • jikmo, on 09/04/2008, -0/+0Unfortunately, this piece of pop-journalism completely misrepresented the invisibility cloak.

    The invisibility cloak only cloaks the object at certain frequencies. At other frequencies it just looks like a lens that's bended the light wrong, so you can still see the person at the frequencies that aren't being cloaked.

    The accomplishment with the anti-invisibility cloak isn't a practical one as far as being able to see, it's a mathematical one. The anti-invisibility cloak effectively turns an invisibility cloak into a pane of glass.

    This would be useful though if someone would figure out how to make a meta-invisibility cloak which would cloak all frequencies by altering the properties throughout the cloak. For instance, by layering invisibility cloaks, you could make a cloak that makes the inside invisible to more frequencies and leaves behind a distorted image of whatever is behind the cloak. Then you could put an anti-invisibility cloak on the inside to allow you to select a small range of frequencies that you can see. But really this would be stupid because you could just not cloak that frequency with the layered invisibility cloak.

    It's neat, but no work with invisibility cloaks in the near future would require them.
  • diggydougie, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1But can you still have your shields up when using the cloak? By the way, I think that shields would be more useful than a cloak would.
  • jikmo, on 09/04/2008, -0/+0The article completely lied when it said that people aren't making invisibility cloaks because they wouldn't let you see. The only reason we aren't using them for practical purposes is because we haven't worked out the bugs with the technology yet and manufacturing them is hard as hell right now.
  • mlerner, on 09/04/2008, -0/+1Dear Diary,

    Jackpot!
  •  

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