Is invisibility closer than we thought? What if all we had to do was make a device that changes the color that we see into a color that isn't on our visible spectum? If there is a baseball that's colors aren't on the visible spectrum, it would be there, yet it would be invisible. I could still hit someone with it, but they couldn't see it, just feel it. Using that logic, we just need a device that changes the average person's/item's color/shade. If it could change the visible spectrum of colors into a spectrum that is invisible to the human eye, like an infrared spectrum, then it would theoretically make you invisible to the human eye, and only come up on infrared scanners and sensors.

The problem is that the object would still block light from other sources.

Being invisible from more than one point of view is also a problem.

Erhm...it's invisibility. Or were we not supposed to see the error?

 

Anyway, check out the Rochester cloak.

 

 

Or maybe the Berkeley cloak.

Blurring the Line Between Magic and Science: Berkeley Researchers Create an Invisibility Cloak

...A team led by Xiang Zhang, a principal investigator with Berkeley Labs Materials Sciences Division and director of UC Berkeleys Nano-scale Science and Engineering Center, has created a carpet cloak from nanostructured silicon that conceals the presence of objects placed under it from optical detection. While the carpet itself can still be seen, the bulge of the object underneath it disappears from view. Shining a beam of light on the bulge shows a reflection identical to that of a beam reflected from a flat surface, meaning the object itself has essentially been rendered invisible.

 

We have come up with a new solution to the problem of invisibility based on the use of dielectric (nonconducting) materials, says Zhang. Our optical cloak not only suggests that true invisibility materials are within reach, it also represents a major step towards transformation optics, opening the door to manipulating light at will for the creation of powerful new microscopes and faster computers. ...

Is invisibility closer than we thought? What if all we had to do was make a device that changes the color that we see into a color that isn't on our visible spectum? If there is a baseball that's colors aren't on the visible spectrum, it would be there, yet it would be invisible. I could still hit someone with it, but they couldn't see it, just feel it. Using that logic, we just need a device that changes the average person's/item's color/shade. If it could change the visible spectrum of colors into a spectrum that is invisible to the human eye, like an infrared spectrum, then it would theoretically make you invisible to the human eye, and only come up on infrared scanners and sensors.

 

It would still absorb light. It would turn black.

Physicists Make Objects Invisible without Metamaterial Cloaking

 

A team of physicists has managed to make homogenous cylindrical objects completely invisible in the microwave range without relying on metamaterial coatings. The method is based on a new understanding of electromagnetic wave scattering.

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"Our theoretical calculations were successfully tested in microwave experiments. What matters is that the invisibility idea we implemented in our work can be applied to other electromagnetic wave ranges, including to the visible range. Materials with corresponding refractive index are either long known or can be developed at will," said Mikhail Rybin, first author of the paper and senior researcher at the Metamaterials Laboratory in ITMO University.

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