'Perfect' INVISIBLE SHED stuns boffinry world

Invisibility cloaks - or, more correctly, sheds - inched a little closer to reality this week with the revelation that scientists have made an object flawlessly invisible. Previous attempts to make objects invisible had succeeded in bending light around their edges, but left a dark shadow behind the object because of some …

[Anonymous Coward]

Q preps the Aston

That is the sound of Q prepping the Aston Martin. All negative reviews of Die Another Day are now removed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Q preps the Aston

Actually Richard Hammond demonstrated how you can easily make a vehicle invisible in the record "Top Gead James Bond cars" special.

[JDX]

Re: Q preps the Aston

Indeed. Although it wasn't particularly convincing, the idea is technically sound. It is exactly what was used in Hunt for Red October as well, although for sonar rather than light.

[Gordon 10]

Re: Q preps the Aston

Are you sure?

As far as I remember the "cloak" in Hunt for Red October (the book) was just an enhanced Anechoic (sound absorbing) coating plus a caterpillar drive (think water jets).

So basically low noise and sound absorbing nothing to do with cloaking.

[JDX]

Re: Q preps the Aston

I was sure, now I'm not. I thought it absorbed the active sonar, transmitted it on the other side and then sent the echo back as if it wasn't blocking the signal. Otherwise from above, wouldn't blocking the signal be pretty obvious... "why doesn't the ocean have a bottom on that submarine-sized areas?"

[SkippyBing]

Re: Q preps the Aston

It was silent drive plus sound absorbing tiles in 'Hunt for Red October'. Active sonar isn't normally used in anti-sub warfare as it gives away the hunter's position far too easily, generally before he even knows there might be a submarine in the same postcode.

[TeeCee]

Re: Q preps the Aston

"...generally before he even knows there might be a submarine in the same postcode."

You must have very large postcode areas where you are. An Astute class boat can sit off the Isle of Wight and tell you which and what class of yank craft are using active sonar on the other side of the pond.

[BorkedAgain]

Re: Q preps the Aston

I think he meant Galactic Postcode; accurate to the nearest planetary hemisphere or significant moon.

[Pete 2]

Be careful where you leave it

Having an invisible shed is all very well while you're inside it and enjoying the benefits of its invisibility (though those don't include being impervious to carpet-bombing or other nasty military techniques of ridding a landscape of every bloody thing on it). However, once you're outside you might need a trail of breadcrumbs to find your way back again.

Just look out for hungry birds.

[frank ly]

Re: Be careful where you leave it

If you could afford an invisible shed, you could afford GPS.

[TRT]

Re: Be careful where you leave it

Well, if you just wait a few weeks, you'll see the outline of it on the grass which will have grown two inches by now because you can't find the lawnmower.

[Pete 2]

Re: Be careful where you leave it

> you'll see the outline of it on the grass

Yes. These things only remain invisible until someone takes a crop sprayer over the area and drops red paint on everything. After that you've got a nice red rectangle, even though it's against a uniform red background .... Better make the shed rock-shaped, too. Just in case.

[hplasm]

Re: Better make the shed rock-shaped, too.

Unfortunately the chameleon circuit is bust.

[Annihilator]

Re: Be careful where you leave it

"Just look out for hungry birds."

Tch, Rovio doing another Angry Birds crossover release, this time with Hungry Hippos?

[Peter Gathercole]

Re: Be careful where you leave it

If it were capable of bending light from all directions around itself, it would be a very boring place to be, because windows would not work, and you could not see out (hint, the light you NEED to enter the windows so you could see out would be diverted to the other side, and thus not available to enter your eyes.

You would need some form of photomultiplier to allow the full amount of light to appear on the other side, while providing some for you to see with inside.

[Anonymous C0ward]

Re: Be careful where you leave it

And for the same reason you can't cover cameras in it for perverted purposes.

[Peter Storm]

Everybody remember where we parked

[Silverburn]

Invisible Shed

Pictures, or it didn't hap...

oh wait.

[Anonymous John]

My greenhouse is almost invisible., but you can still see what's inside it.

[Gordon 10]

almost transparent <> almost invisible.

[Trevor 3]

If you were to alter an objects refractive index to that of air, it would be, for all intents and porpoises, invisble. (Thanks EE Doc Smith)

But everyone would see you when you got in. And all your old Ataris and megadrives and archemedes and stuff

[Bobby Omelette]

"It only worked from one direction." ...

Any chance it could work on One Direction? And trap their sound too.

[big_Jim]

The missus and I

The missus and I perfected the technique of being invisible to each other years ago. We can go days without seeing each other.

[Colin Millar]

Pah

A 2003 Vauxhall astra 1.6

Now that's an invisibility shed

[JeffyPooh]

c

Presumably going around takes a bit longer than going straight. Therefore this technique will not work as-is with broadband illumination (visible light).

Multipath results in reinforcement and cancellation that varies with frequency. Scale this technique to visible light frequencies (and non-infinitesimal cloaked volumes) and it'll be a freaking light show with a comb like spectrum.

[Maty]

One suggestion ...

You know those scenic views that someone has plonked a fertilizer factory or whatever in the middle of?

It seems to me that one immediate usage of this thing - if they ever manage to scale it up - would be to make such eyesores and things like phone masts power pylons vanish from the landscape. We could have large chunks of what would look like 17th century England, except that cows keep bumping into invisible objects.

[Lars]

Re: One suggestion ...

The best way to achieve invisibility is to just fuck off.

[sueme2]

Ah

Spray it wif dark matter, what happens then?

[Fenton]

SEP field

No no no. Douglas Adams had it right.

Just generate an SEP field.

It's Somebody Elses Problem

[DanceMan]

But how will this affect Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson?

Mine's the one you can't see.

[Stoneshop]

"I finally gave in"

"Got a second one, but those boffins have gone and made it invisible, with all my sheet music in it too. So now I'm totally fed up with this whole business, sheds, composing and all. I'm moving to Canada and become a ... Lumberjack!"

"So, it's Arthur Two-Sheds Lumberjack from now on?"

[JaitcH]

The British Shed

An institution replicated no where else on earth.

Good for unapproved smokes, railway train setups, and even garden tools.

[Ed Hume]

When “boffins” find out how this cloaking is done in non-laboratory conditions, then perhaps they can figure out how to see through the cloaking. Maybe then we’ll see those UFO’s.

[Stoneshop]

non-laboratory conditions

Human invisibility is easy, and has been for decades already: go ride a motorcycle.

[Stoneshop]

Re: non-laboratory conditions

Downvoted? Someone who's done a SMIDSY, most likely.

[John 62]

decloak the UFOs?

We'd need a tachyon grid for that!

[Simon Harris]

Phone...

My phone seems to have mastered the art of being invisible to Orange's microwaves most of the time

[Anonymous Coward]

I can do that too!

"Unfortunately the object was a static 1cm tall cylinder, it was only invisible to microwaves (not visible light) and the invisibility effect only worked from one angle."

Well, when my wife if complaining too much, I am too tired and the pub is open I get invisible too. For hours!

[Amorous Cowherder]

All that's required to make a person invisible in a room full of other people is let them utter the immortal line, "Hey have I shown anyone my holiday snaps?"!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't see the point of this article

nuff said

[Geoff Thompson]

'Ello 'Ello

Move along now, nothing to see here.