Cloak of Invisibility Coming Soon 296
davaguco writes "It seems that we will finally be able to make ourselves invisible" It seems like this story resurfaces every few months and then gets submitted a zillion times so here it is. Personally I'm still waiting for my cloak of evasion. 20% miss chance is awesome.
Pictures (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pictures (Score:2)
Re:Pictures (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing to see there. Moving right along...
From TFA:
Sounds an awful lot like the technology speculated about in Dean Ing's Ransom of Black Stealth One [powells.com] about ten years ago.
Re:Pictures (Score:2, Funny)
Nothing to see there. Moving right along...
Am I the only one who finds this phrase particularly appropriate here?
Re:Pictures (Score:4, Insightful)
Science isn't about the "truth," it is about models that explain a set of data. Doesn't matter if their model is real, it explains and predicts a set of behavior. Once data is discovered that contradicts the model, scientists work on reformulating it.
Re:Pictures (Score:2)
Re:Pictures (Score:2, Insightful)
All you do is broadcast your ignorance to the world. What really astounds me is how proud you are of your ignorance.
Re:Pictures (Score:2)
I guess it's just a wait-and-see
Re:Pictures (Score:2)
They haven't even made the prototype device that will undoubtedly be much larger than a cloak. A cloak using this technology is probably at least 30 years off (yes, that's a guess.)
Screw that! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Screw that! (Score:4, Funny)
Pretty amusing clip, I might add.
Re:Screw that! (Score:2)
Re:Screw that! (Score:3, Insightful)
-
Wouldn't it be easier... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wouldn't it be easier... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Certain Frequencies" (Score:2)
"Selective frequencies" already in use by the Navy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wouldn't it be easier... (Score:2)
Just look at the issue of presidential accountability.
Re:Wouldn't it be easier... (Score:2)
Yeah, you could just disguise yourself as a box. Works all the time in Metal Gear Solid.
Re:Wouldn't it be easier... (Score:2)
This problem has already been addressed by Scott Adams in his book "The Dilbert Future".
To paraphrase, as I don't have the book handy, he determined that in the future, public surveillance would be ubiquitous and the key to personal privacy is to be dangerously boring, thus giving nobody a reason to spy on you.
Judging by my sphere of contacts, I am apparently not the only person to read this book.
Re:Wouldn't it be easier... (Score:2)
Not if the devices around the object all have Genuine People Personalities(tm).
Nothing to see (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nothing to see (Score:2)
Hmmm. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmmm. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: cloak of evasion (Score:5, Funny)
Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:5, Funny)
Reply to mods (Score:2)
Or better yet, step away from the computer (just leave those mod points alone, they're too dangerous for you now).
Go upstairs.
Go outside.
And play.
Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:4, Informative)
Also, there is no cloak of evasion. There is a ring of evasion, though.
Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:2)
Don't make me use my gauntlets of nuclear explosion on you. I've got the squirting ring of tobasco sauce on too.
Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:3, Interesting)
Worthy of seenonslash.com - see you there . . .
Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:5, Funny)
Pros
1) +3 Sci-Fi/Comics/Anime Knowledge Check
2) +1 Money Making Technology Attribute
3) +5 ability to skewer pompous know-it-alls
Cons
1) -5 Charisma score to all but the "Drow-knowing" of Female Humans.
2) +4 vunerability to Jock/Bullies/Bugbears
3) +6 affinity to "reading" Slashdot....
Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:2)
Most dorks I've dealt with *are* the pompus know-it-alls, so this is some kind of backfire mechanism.
Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:2)
But when you are attacked by a Gazebo and already alienated all the other players so they won't help you will sing a different tune.
Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a social game- my daughter and her husband played it together in college (it's partially how they met-- it's partially how me and her mom met). They play in my game now that they are back in town. Unfortunately- her mom and I only made it about 10 years.
There were plenty of females in their college group.
My games have had a lot of females and couples over the years including a couple messy affairs.
My game was the basis for a sporting event (Ultimate frisbee) for close to a decade (if we didn't play- it didn't make). I still play ultimate twice a week and just last week they commented on my showing a bit of a six-pack.
As for me... well I've probably seen more action than you have unless you are an NBA star and none of it through clubs or with "club" girls. A surprising amount through Everquest including a couple trips to Vegas.
All of this takes money of course- which being a geek in the 80's made pretty easy to do in the 90's and now. I learned a lot of skills writing my D&D utilities in apple basic and cobol.
Are some D&D folks massive nerds? Sure-- but so are some Harley motorcycle fans. Are they happy? If so why pick on them unless it makes you feel better about your own life (which undoubtably lacks perfection in some way too).
Re:Actually invisibility gives 50% miss chance (Score:2)
Apparently not quite reality yet (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apparently not quite reality yet (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdotters already have that power (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Slashdotters already have that power (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slashdotters already have that power (Score:2)
Re:Slashdotters already have that power (Score:5, Funny)
It only works against female humans for some reason though.
It is more like a cursed potion of invisibility from females if you really want to describe the artifact.
I suspect that a 12 pack of mountian dew a day combined with excessive cheeto consumption metabolizes
this potion inside the slashdotters body.
Tesla did it! (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.cheniere.org/books/analysis/pc_wave.ht
Re:Tesla did it! (Score:2)
Except, you know, possible in the real world. Tesla was brilliant, but towards the end he obviously cracked, and the people that invent stories of Russian scalar wave forcefields are worse.
Re:Tesla did it! (Score:2)
Caution, YASD (Score:5, Funny)
You put on the tattered cape.
Suddenly, you can see through yourself.
The nurse hits.
You can not remove the cloak, it seems to be cursed.
The nurse hits.
The floor is too hard to dig here.
Really attack Wengretik the shopkeeper?
Wengretik strikes at thin air.
The nurse hits.
Wengretik hits. Wengretik hits.
You die.
Re:Caution, YASD (Score:2, Funny)
You pick up a forked wand.
You zap a forked wand.
You feel a wrenching sensation.
You drink a ruby potion.
Ooph! This tastes like liquid fire!
You read a scroll labeled ELBIB YLOH.
Being confused, you mispronounce the magic runes.
Your tattered cloak falls to pieces!
Death touches you! You die...
Invisible... or black?!?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Invisible... or black?!?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Invisible... or black?!?? (Score:3, Informative)
True (Score:2)
Re:Invisible... or black?!?? (Score:2)
Re:Invisible... or black?!?? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Invisible... or black?!?? (Score:2)
For human perception, if it were to simply not relect back light, you'd have a visible black "hole" in your vision. Suspicious to say the least. If you see a human shapped black form run across the room then it's not going to fool a
Another Jack Bauer fact... (Score:5, Funny)
Huh? (Score:3, Funny)
concepts are here (Score:2, Informative)
Keep it Away (Score:3, Funny)
/. is the invisibility club (Score:5, Funny)
(you're nodding your head right now, aren't you?)
erm... are they sure they have the physics right (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't that make the cloak appear like a big black void of light?? Making things "invisible" requires light from the objects behind the cloak to pass through it.
No, that would be transparent (Score:2, Informative)
Main Entry: invisible
Pronunciation: (")in-'vi-z&-b&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin invisibilis, from in- + visibilis visible
1 a : incapable by nature of being seen b : inaccessible to view : HIDDEN
2 : IMPERCEPTIBLE, INC
Re:erm... are they sure they have the physics righ (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Radar? (Score:2)
"Effectively, they are making a piece of space seem to disappear, at least as far as light is concerned."
And then
Prof Pendry said the technology has great potential for hiding objects from radar
So they've figured out how to bend light for optical camo. Neeto. Now how in the hell does this have anything to do with radar?
Re:Radar? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Radar? (Score:2)
So they've figured out how to bend light for optical camo. Neeto. Now how in the hell does this have anything to do with radar?
Umm, radar is light
.Ummm... I have one in my bathroom... (Score:5, Funny)
The cloaking device relies on recently discovered materials used to make superlenses that make light behave in a highly unusual way. Instead of having a positive refractive index - the property which makes light bend as it passes through a prism or water - the materials have a negative refractive index, which effectively makes light travel backwards.
Trust scientists to come up with a complicated term for "mirror"
The commercial (Score:4, Funny)
BBC News article (Score:2)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4968338.stm [bbc.co.uk]
But have you seen it? (Score:2)
If you're standing, looking straight on to the "invidible item" it sorta works.
Otherwise, there's a fair amount more work to be done.
Re:But have you seen it? (Score:2)
Painting something black doesn't make it invisible (Score:5, Insightful)
The article says, rather imprecisely, "when certain objects are placed next to superlenses, the light bouncing off them is essentially erased by light reflecting off the superlens, making the object invisible."
But "erasing" the light reflecting off an object doesn't make it invisible, any more than painting a car black... even matte black... makes it invisible.
In a dark room, if you cover a light with a black box it becomes invisible. When viewing a star from the earth, if it is occulted by, say, the moon passing between you and the object, it becomes invisible. If I pull a red cloak over myself, covering myself completely, you can no longer see me. You cannot tell who I am and if I stand very still perhaps you cannot tell that I am not a statue, so, in a sense, I have become invisible.
But, to become invisible in the sense of H. G. Wells' "The Invisible Man," or a Star Trek cloaking device, or James Bond's invisible car, or what have you, requires much more than "not being able to see" the object. It means not being able to detect the presence of the object... under real-world lighting conditions, with real-world scenes _behind_ the object, and from more than one vantage point at the same time.
That last one is the problem with many of these schemes. It doesn't do any good to make an object invisible when viewed by your right eye if there are "matte lines" around it when viewed with your left eye. It doesn't do a lot of good to make an object invisible as viewed from one soldier if it is visible to everyone else in the platoon.
Re:Painting something black doesn't make it invisi (Score:2)
Re:Painting something black doesn't make it invisi (Score:2)
Invisible cars... *snap* that explains it! Here it is, after the year 2000 and I'm always wondering, where are all the flying cars? They must be invisible. So simple an explanation... I wonder why it never occured to me before...
But seriously, the biggest problem with traditional invisibility is that the user would be blinded, as any photon sensed by the user is one not passed through. The third biggest problem would be non-invisible s
Re:Painting something black doesn't make it invisi (Score:2)
Re:Painting something black doesn't make it invisi (Score:2)
"Co-producer Michael Wilson of EON Productions said the invisible car in "Die Another Day" had begun to dip the hugely successful movie series into the realm of the unbelievable."
Never saw that one. Now I'm REAL glad.
Re:Painting something black doesn't make it invisi (Score:2)
But the next 007 movie will have time travel (Score:2)
I've had my cloak for some time. (Score:2)
Now all I have to do is figure out how to make money off this cloak...
Can't be THAT new (Score:2)
Magnetic Invsibility is More Important (Score:2)
Star Trekken! (Score:2)
It's light, Jim! But not as we know it. Not as we know it, not as we know it. It's light, Jim! But not as we know it, Captain.
Negative refractive index (Score:2)
I ALREADY HAVE THE POWER OF INVISIBILITY! (Score:3, Funny)
I tried to buy one of these... (Score:2)
Cloak of Invisibility Coming Soon? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Yesss finally I will be able to.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yesss finally I will be able to.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wouldn't... (Score:5, Insightful)
A single mirror wouldn't cut it - if a flat mirror, you'd see a singular object from elsewhere in the region, or if a convex mirror, you'd see yourself in the mirror, along with your background. It would stand right out from the background, like an AC troll in an otherwise-reasonable discussion.
Re:Wouldn't... (Score:2)
Re:Klingons vs. Romulans (Score:2)
Re:Klingons vs. Romulans (Score:2)
Re:Klingons vs. Romulans (Score:3, Informative)
That's OK (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It seems a phletora of new laws would be coming (Score:2)