Fergie's Tech Blog

Defense Tech: Battlefield Invisibility

It sounds like something out of a comic book, or Lord of the Rings, I know. But there's a chance that invisibility – real-life, honest-to-God invisibility – may actually be possible, some day.

The technology doesn’t come from some dubious unknown inventor, but from Professor Sir John Pendry, the legendary theoretical physicist, [who writes] in this month’s BBC Focus magazine – “the world's best science and technology monthly.” Pendry has developed the concept of metamaterials, which have properties determined by their structure rather than their composition. This can give them 'impossible' properties, such as a negative refractive index.

Initially, there was some debate about whether this could ever be achieved. But the proof came last year with the demonstration of a superlens capable of beating any lens made of normal material.

posted by Fergie @ 9/08/2006 10:39:00 AM