Lia Godinez

Article Assignment for 7/19/11

Physicist Shuang Zhang and MIT engineer George Barbastathis are close to discovering a way to conceal humans, that is, make them invisible. The scientists in Englands Birmingham University used the crystal of mineral calcite to hide in one case a paperclip, and in another a rolled up paper ball. The illusion occurs because of the minerals optical anisotropy property. It can hide objects in its chamber when light rays are split up and reflected in a particular way. In simple terms, physicists have found that they can utilize calcites power to produce an optical illusion using light to make objects invisible to the human eye. The crystal cloaks were created by gluing two crystals together and placing the objects they wanted to conceal under their niche. The cloak they made was only in 2-D, but German scientists quickly made an equally small, 3-D version. The importance of the dimensions comes from the angle at which light enters the crystals. A 3-D model allows for a greater range of light rays to hit it. Scientists are still developing this newfound technology. The illusion only works well in the proper lighting. Thus, its practicality is still being expanded. This is the first time anyone has been able to make a larger object invisible. Prior experiments only concealed objects that were already microscopic in size. The scientists hope to develop technology to hide humans.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/03/19/the-3d-invisibity-cloak-its-realbut-its-really-tiny/ http://discovermagazine.com/2011/may/13-invisibility-cloaks-hit-the-big-time