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 Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 8:58 am
Scientists are not sure, but maybe so, they think if they can make a circular material of certain type around your body in a sheild, there will be a possibility they can bend the light to make you see what's behind the device rather than what's between you, and what you're looking it, I think it would be cool if they find out a way to create this master peice. and I would LOVE to purchase it if it worked out and became invisable.
What do you all think about this possibility?
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Posted: Fri May 23, 2008 9:00 am
I know I think that would be kick a**!
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Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 11:38 pm
Hm... I've seen something similar to this before. Though they used a projector, a camera, and a longcoat... The camera was put behind the person and wired to the projector which projected the image onto the front of the coat. It wasn't true invisibility, but you could see "through" him. The problem is miniturizing the system...
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 8:16 pm
It could totally work, but it would require incredibly powerful computing processors and optical phased array technology. Both are realistic, so, ya, it could happen. ^_^
If you don't know what optical phased arrays are, think of them like this. Start with a normal modern-day LCD screen - which you might even be lookin at now. Each pixel on your LCD screen has two components, a light source - usually a LED (or if you're really rich and on the cutting edge, OLED ^_^;, and if so, then let me be your friend!), and usually they have 3 LEDs, for red/green/blue - and a liquid crystal cross polarizer to control the brightness - you can think of that as like a louvre-style window blinds. The way your screen works is that every pixel is lit all the time, and the cross-polarizers stop the light, or allow some to pass. So if you want a red spot on the screen, you stop the light from all the green and blue pixels and let the light from the red pixels pass. Now a phased element adds another step - phase control. So you can not only control the brightness, you can also control the delay. Why is that cool? Because if the pixels are small enough and close enough together, you can use that phase delay to "shape" the light wave - and make it look like it's comin from either really far away or really close. The result... true and perfect 3D from a flat screen, without any need for special glasses. And the screen doesn't need to be flat either.
Once you can do that, the next thing you'd need are really small light sensors - not really a big deal - and a processor to calculate how to control the delay and brightness of each pixel... and you need to do a lot of calculating. But that's not really a big deal either because you can use trillions of nanocomputers to do the calculations in parallel - forget quad core, this is gigaquad core stuff here.
And finally, you'd need some kind of optical disruption coating - like what they use on stealth planes to reflect radar all willy-nilly, except for optical wavelengths. But that's not really too tough.
With all that - which is all possible, and not even all that hard or far off - you can easily create a perfect visual "cloak". And it will be perfect, not like that projector coat, which has distortions unless you're lookin straight at it.
BUT!
This would only be a visual cloak. You could still be spotted by a number of other means, like any part of the EM spectrum you haven't accounted for (like infra-red), or by things like your mass and its effects (you might be able to see your footprints or the floor you're standin on bend), or your volume and its effects (you might be able to see rain bouncin off of nothin or dust blowin around you), or other means (like dirt on you).
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Posted: Fri Jun 06, 2008 4:16 am
I've read that somewhere before- a certain material that bends light. I wonder how they do that though. The only thing I know that definite bends light is gravity, which does it everyday. ..... I suppose you could create a blackhole and carry it around, where light from behind you will bend around it and make you sort of invisible, though:
1) avoid being "sucked" in is a problem
2) when you could create black-hole, the prospect of invisibility isn't the thing scientists would be paying attention at.
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Posted: Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:57 pm
i'm pretty sure that any material you read about that can bend light is science fiction. ^_^;
i know "bending light" is the standard SF description used for cloaking... but if you think about it, it's pretty lame. ^_^;
There are two ways that you see objects - either by light emitted from the object, or by light bouncing off of that object (light that has been admitted from something else reflecting off of that object according to a specific frequency response characteristic). 99% of what you see is by reflected light - only things that "glow" are emitting their own light (the hot filament in an incandescent bulb, the bandgap in LEDs, and pretty much everything at a rave).
So not counting things that glow, there are two ways you can "bend" light to make things "invisible". You can push light away so it does not bounce off of you, or you can suck light in so hard that even if it does bounce off of you it won't get away. Obviously, the second way is a black hole... which would be a pretty lousy way to hide something. And the first way is physically impossible, because it would require anti gravity to push (instead of pull), and as far as we know, that can't be done.
But let's be imaginative and say that some day we will be able to create anti-gravity fields. Could it work then?
No, not really. ^_^;
Picture this in your head... two people standing at some distance from each other, Joe and Steve, and far behind Steve up in the sky is the sun. Now, draw a line between Joe and Steve - that's Joe's line of sight that he can see Steve by. Draw another line between Joe and the sun, that's the line of sight that Joe can see the sun by.
Now Steve activates his cloaking device. So draw a line from Joe to Steve... but just before it gets to Steve, bend it up and away. Joe can see the sun, but he can't see Steve. (Although, Steve is radiating infrared light, so if Joe had infrared goggles, he could see Steve fine.)
But here's the catch... draw a line from Joe to Steve at a different angle... and this time when you bend it up, bend it so it goes toward the sun. So now what does Joe see? Up in the sky he sees the sun, and down on the ground in front of him he sees... the sun! Awesome job you're doin hidin there, Steve old buddy! ^_^;
(And of course, an anti-gravitational field powerful enough to bend light like that would push Steve off of the surface of the Earth faster than a speeding bullet... and probably push the Earth out of orbit, too.)
The moral of the story is that if you want to cloak somethin, bending light is a stupid way to do it. Any idiot will know you're there by the optical distortions (this is how we find big, dark things in space), and even if they're blind they will feel you by the gravitational affects (which means that your cloaking device sucks so hard that even people who didn't know you were there before now do).
Even if you were to find some way to bend light without a gravitational field, by some magical new kind of field, you would still have the blatant optical distortions giving your position away: "Well, i can't see Steve, but i can see the sun smeared across half the sky, so if i aim for the centre of the distortion...." (Incidentally, this would work even better in space. The stars around your cloaked ship would smear toward your ship. The effect would be like what you see when you look out the front of a ship travelling at warp speed in Star Trek, or going to hyperdrive in Star Wars. In other words, you'd end up with a thousand glowing lines all pointing directly at your ship from all around in three dimensions. Yeah... they'll never find you. ^_^)
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Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:39 am
It would have several practical applications:
Assassinations
Espionage
Reconnaissance
Just imagine it: we fight wars with planes, ships, and soldiers with these devices on them and it would give us a huge advantage in combat!
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 10:52 pm
Aenakume i'm pretty sure that any material you read about that can bend light is science fiction. ^_^; i know "bending light" is the standard SF description used for cloaking... but if you think about it, it's pretty lame. ^_^; I'm pretty sure I read an article in a science mag (Scientific America or one of those) which states the possibility of a material which warps light. Whether they've done it, dunno, but the scientific possibility is significant enough for an established science mag to mention it. On the other hand, light changes speed as it enters different mediums. A simple piece of perspex can and will effectively bend light- though to make the magical cloaking device is another story. The device probly will have a lot to do with refraction and diffraction, now that I think bout it.
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 11:09 pm
I'm sorry, but to actually pull of an effective cloak, you need to use wide-angle cameras, so that they can get about 180 degrees in all directions BUT to you. then hook that up to a tiny little screen that does the oppisite, and shows an image at 180 degrees in all directions but you, and put that on the oppisite side of the camera, then cover a body, be they human, a plane, a ship, a starship, etc., and unless you're able to see up through the ground, it'll be near perfect. the problem is, your still going to have blank spots, minor distortions, and your putting out a TON of heat. so putting an entire army in that get-up is a bad idea, unless you just mass your troops and rush. spec-ops units, or ships, go for it. And with ships, you can actually keep it cooler more because you can have AC units keeping the cloaking systems cooled, or even do what they do with computers now, run a water cooling hose though the hull, and just shift the heat that way. so the biggest problem wiht cloaking, is the heat signature. It's gonna be big, and it's kinda hard to miss, unless you can mask it or reduce it, which requires something bigger then a human being, maybe even a car.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2008 10:50 pm
Glein I'm sorry, but to actually pull of an effective cloak, you need to use wide-angle cameras, so that they can get about 180 degrees in all directions BUT to you. then hook that up to a tiny little screen that does the oppisite, and shows an image at 180 degrees in all directions but you, and put that on the oppisite side of the camera, then cover a body, be they human, a plane, a ship, a starship, etc., and unless you're able to see up through the ground, it'll be near perfect. the problem is, your still going to have blank spots, minor distortions, and your putting out a TON of heat. so putting an entire army in that get-up is a bad idea, unless you just mass your troops and rush. spec-ops units, or ships, go for it. And with ships, you can actually keep it cooler more because you can have AC units keeping the cloaking systems cooled, or even do what they do with computers now, run a water cooling hose though the hull, and just shift the heat that way. so the biggest problem wiht cloaking, is the heat signature. It's gonna be big, and it's kinda hard to miss, unless you can mask it or reduce it, which requires something bigger then a human being, maybe even a car.
BTW. I had a thought: warfare is becoming more and more "information" in the 21st century as opposed to the vast horsemen of olden days. In the future, when spaceships and planet-blowing tech come into play, we're probly going to revert back to the good old ways- fire power against fire power.
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Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 7:43 am
Your right. 'Modern Warfare' is all about having more and better intell then your enemy, and then using that to out smart, and out manauver them. But once we're in space, I see it being a case of 17th, 18th century naval battles. Line your ship up and then open fire with your entire broadside. Although, you'd still have to worry about fighters and bombers still, because carriers would be even more effective in space. Read the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. It basically shows that kind of style Military's will end up having to adapt.
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Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:20 pm
Glein Your right. 'Modern Warfare' is all about having more and better intell then your enemy, and then using that to out smart, and out manauver them. But once we're in space, I see it being a case of 17th, 18th century naval battles. Line your ship up and then open fire with your entire broadside. Although, you'd still have to worry about fighters and bombers still, because carriers would be even more effective in space. Read the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. It basically shows that kind of style Military's will end up having to adapt. It's quite sweet when you think about it, just cracking a billion shots at each other "SWIZZH, BOOM, BANG"... in novels and movies at least.
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Posted: Wed Jun 18, 2008 5:59 pm
You think that's sweet? Dude, I hope to god when you join the military, you see just how sweet dieing in some fo the most brutal manners possible is. Just imagine, unless you in an EVA suit, the second the compartment your in is opened up to space, your dead. INSTANTLY. Another thing, your gonna be stuck with the same people in the same amount of space, but with even less contact with others then the modern navy. That builds bonds that are hard to forgot, and even harder to deal with when one of your own dies. Also, commanders in the field will ahve to be more independant then modern commanders, due to that lack of contact for extended periods of time. Trust me, it won't be sweet. and it'll be even more grusome then ever. Think about it this way. Imagine a normal adult person, say 5'5, 150 lbs. Male or female, you decide. Ok, now imagine them in a metal room about 15 feet by 15 feet. Got that in your mind? All right, now imagine WATCHING their blood boil in their skin, and seeing it coming out of every single one of their pores, their mouth, their eyes, their ears, and their nose. But due note, this isn't a slow process, it happens instantly. Tell me that is a sweet deal. Want an even uglier picture? imagine it's yourself that's dieing like that. THAT is what happens if your not in an EVA suit of some kind. Now imagine what it would be like to be in an EVA suit and watch one of your crewmates die like that. Sweet huh? More like 'oh my god, I hope I even SURVIVE this.'
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Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 6:06 am
Glein You think that's sweet? Dude, I hope to god when you join the military, you see just how sweet dieing in some fo the most brutal manners possible is. Just imagine, unless you in an EVA suit, the second the compartment your in is opened up to space, your dead. INSTANTLY. Another thing, your gonna be stuck with the same people in the same amount of space, but with even less contact with others then the modern navy. That builds bonds that are hard to forgot, and even harder to deal with when one of your own dies. Also, commanders in the field will ahve to be more independant then modern commanders, due to that lack of contact for extended periods of time. Trust me, it won't be sweet. and it'll be even more grusome then ever. Think about it this way. Imagine a normal adult person, say 5'5, 150 lbs. Male or female, you decide. Ok, now imagine them in a metal room about 15 feet by 15 feet. Got that in your mind? All right, now imagine WATCHING their blood boil in their skin, and seeing it coming out of every single one of their pores, their mouth, their eyes, their ears, and their nose. But due note, this isn't a slow process, it happens instantly. Tell me that is a sweet deal. Want an even uglier picture? imagine it's yourself that's dieing like that. THAT is what happens if your not in an EVA suit of some kind. Now imagine what it would be like to be in an EVA suit and watch one of your crewmates die like that. Sweet huh? More like 'oh my god, I hope I even SURVIVE this.' Dude, you have to chill. We all know getting yer brain busted outta yer skull is gruesome manner- even if that is a chicken or some little animal and not human. But since this is a sci-fi guild, let's imagine these two scenarios 1) sitting in a cinema, watching a singular person hack into a singular safebox, stealing a little slip of paper containing some info, getting back to safety with no one knowing, and thereafter having no immediate consequence until a few months later, 2) sitting in a cinema, watching a large spaceship appearing in the middle of the screen, other spaceships appearing alongside; "death rays" zapped from one side to another, the speakers filled with sound-effects. Gruesome in reality or not, it's quite certain which one is "sweeter" in sci-fi terms. In reality, it's most likely very true that the less people a war involve, the better it is- best if all of it is done under secrecy by governments and are over before they even erupt. But it also depends a bit on perspective: on a humanitarian side, maximizing human welfare is important, but on a grander, removed sort of perspective, even if large bloodbaths are gruesome, there is a sense of pride, a sense of happening, a sense of belonging, a sense of something enormous that the creatures called humans can be involved in. When you think of what you can lose, or what your friends and family can lose (when you die in a war as an army), it is heart-wrenching, but when there are nothing to lose and the whole of humanity, every one of them, is put on the same level as war refugees, the level of emotional impact (without getting killed) might (this is a big "might") not be more than it is now. It is like, we think poor people are sad because they don't have much, but when they don't know there's anything to have in the first place, their level of sadness might not be any more than ours. It all comes down to whether there's a point of reference to which the victim can compared himself to and thereby feel victimized. This... is getting off-topic...
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Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 3:00 pm
One issue. Unless you use the camera "cloaks" described as above, using light bending handwavium is idiotic.
A) No one can see you on visual whatever.
B) If whoever it is is relying on visual whatever that's not related to infrared and the like, they're an idiot. Why didn't you just kill them in the first place? wink
C) You can't see out of said cloaks. After all, you're bending light around you. Your eye requires light to see ya know.
D) No one would be using the Mk. I eyeball and its electronic analogues at that point in time/space. They'd be like, using handwavium sensors to detect your handwavium cloaking field. blaugh
Glein wins this thread for being most realistic about cloaks. Except for in space. You're boned if you emit more then 3 degrees Kelvin. And I can tell you right now, your crew will HATE you. And their families will hate you. And then you get arrested. rofl
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