Hey there and welcome to Life Noggin.
Let’s be honest -- for the past ten years or so, we’ve all wanted to be witches or
wizards.
I mean, learning spells and fighting evil snake-like people would be awesome, but I
also really want invisibility cloaks to be real.
I don’t need one though, since my animator can make me invisible whenever he wants, but
it would be a cool thing for humans to have.
And believe it or not, scientists are getting kinda close to making these dreams come true
-- no magic required!
The key is distorting the way light bounces off an object.
See, we’re able to see things when light reaches our eyes.
That light can be emitted from an object, like the sun.
Or it can enter your eye by bouncing off an object, like this ridiculously large apple.
If we want to hide this apple, we just have to change the way that light gets scattered
off its surface.
But that’s much easier said than done.
See, to do this, we need to use something called a metamaterial -- which is a material
whose structure makes it exhibit properties that don’t occur naturally -- like, invisibility,
for example!
A team of researchers created a metamaterial to do this, which wraps around a three-dimensional
object, just like a cloak would.
But don’t expect this metamaterial to keep you very warm, because it’s only /80 nanometers/
thick!
To put that into perspective, there are 1 /million/ nanometers in a single /millimeter/,
so this material is incredibly thin.
To actually make it work, it’s covered in tiny brick-shaped gold antennas of different
sizes that control how the reflected light gets scattered.
And when the researchers used light with a wavelength of 730 nanometers, the light reflected
off the cloaked object as if it were a flat mirror instead.
Theoretically, you can “tune” the cloak so it shows the object’s background or even
something else /completely/.
Like, this giant apple could now be a giant brussel sprout -- no one will want to eat
it now!
But, sadly, this technology is still far away from actually concealing a /person/.
For starters, it’s only able to conceal very tiny objects, so you -- or a particular
boy wizard -- would still be very, very visible.
And it would also have to work for a wide range of wavelengths, not just one.
Oh, and there’s also the issue that in order to actually be hidden, you’d have to be
standing completely still.
If you moved, the illusion would no longer work.
Minus five points for Gryffindor!
So, are there any other ways to become invisible?
Well, if you want to be hidden from visible light, you could hide yourself using standard
lenses.
But it would only work for a few viewing angles and it’s pretty bulky -- so no cloak, unfortunately.
But what if you wanted to be hidden from something else, instead?
Like, radar, for example.
Granted, you -- or a military plane -- would still be visible to anyone watching, but to
a radar system, it’s possible to go virtually unnoticed.
Now, there’s lots of ways to do this, but the one most similar to an invisibility cloak
is a radar-absorbent material that coats the plane, like iron ball paint.
Basically, any incoming radar signals that reach the plane are dissipated away as heat
thanks to some complicated physics going on in the material.
But, sadly, you’re a person and not a plane and radar isn’t what you’re trying to
hide from.
The research so far is pretty promising, but it’s probably going to be a very long time
until we actually have a true invisibility cloak.
But, baby steps, right?
What sci-fi or fantasy technology do you want to be real?
Let me know in the comments below.
This video, as most of our videos are, was written by our wonderful Head Writer Kaylee
Yuhas.
She made a Harry Potter themed video talking about some of the weird creatures in the world,
and you HAVE to check it out.
There’s a link in the description if you’re on mobile.
Make sure you come back every Monday for a brand new video.
As always, I’m Blocko and this has been Life Noggin.
Don’t forget to keep on thinking!