Scientist thinks invisibility possible in future By Patricia Reaney
Mon Jul 31, 10:11 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - It's unlikely to occur by swallowing a pill or
donning a special cloak, but invisibility could be possible in the
not too distant future, according to research published on Monday.
Harry Potter accomplished it with his magic cloak. H.G.
Wells' Invisible Man swallowed a substance that made him transparent.
But Dr Ulf Leonhardt, a theoretical physicist at St Andrews
University in Scotland, believes the most plausible example is the
Invisible Woman, one of the Marvel Comics superheroes in
the "Fantastic Four."
"She guides light around her using a force field in this cartoon.
This is what could be done in practice," Leonhardt told Reuters in
an interview. "That comes closest to what engineers will probably be
able to do in the future."
Invisibility is an optical illusion that the object or person is not
there. Leonhardt uses the example of water circling around a stone.
The water flows in, swirls around the stone and then leaves as if
nothing was there.
"If you replace the water with light then you would not see that
there was something present because the light is guided around the
person or object. You would see the light coming from the scenery
behind as if there was nothing in front," he said.
In the research published in the New Journal of Physics, Leonhardt
described the physics of theoretical devices that could create
invisibility. It is a follow-up paper to an earlier study published
in the journal Science.
"What the Invisible Woman does is curve space around herself to bend
light. What these devices would do is to mimic that curved space,"
he said.
Although the devices are still theoretical, Leonhardt said
scientists are making advances in metamaterials -- artificial
materials with unusual properties that could be used to make
invisibility devices.
"There are advances being made in metamaterials that mean the first
devices will probably be used for bending radar waves or the
electromagnetic waves used by mobile phones," he said.
The devices could be used as protection mechanisms so the radiation
emitted from mobile phones does not penetrate electronic equipment.
It is guided around it.
"It is very likely that the demonstration for radar would come first
and very soon. To go into the visual will take some time but it is
also not so far off," Leonhardt said.
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