i've seen it already seems quite interesting, what other things could be made invisible if a coat can be

Edited by - Gowserpaul on 6/14/2004 2:21:36 PM

Loved the bit about the skycar.......twas only 30 years ago they thought we would be living in space by now..........and on mars too.........

However, i can see my future in the bag right now.........

"I was at work sir, its just that yesterday i decided to wear my invisibility cloak....."

*edit* - puts the saying "what you can't see can't hurt you" right out of the window. Must admit, i remember seeing something about this back in around 1995 or so, Tomorrows world i think it was.......where this very technology was being discussed....

Edited by - Chips on 6/14/2004 2:59:01 PM

the optical camouflage (invisibility cloak) is fantastic, straight out of Ghost in the Shell. I'll bet you anything you like it's already being used by secret ops types both military and commercial.

I got a cloack on my car. But now I forgot where I put my car...

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Celbrating one year of Daftness

I remember reading about an "invisibility jacket" created in Japan a few years ago. Essentially, it has cameras that would display what they captured on the opposite side of the jacket, thus making it "invisible". It didn't really work though.

yea the camera idea wouldnt work.....the person staring at you would have to be in the perfect posistion not to see you. as for the skycar, ive seen something about that awhile back. and then he said the cost of it would be around 1 million $$$. there is a 1 person seater (which is round..kinda looks like the stereotype of a UFO) and then a 4 person.

Did you two bother reading the article? The jacket is tiny cameras, its not perfect, heck - you would see something, just strange. The skycar woudl cost 500,000 dollars as well - not a mil. Blimey, just read the article before posting comments about it!!

Chips - That was uncalled for. I *did* read the article. I was trying to say that the version that I read about a couple years ago used essentially the same technology, but still didn't work! I'm sorry if I confused you *rolls eyes* .

The 'Cloak' Mentioned here is actually the forerunner to actual SIG (Surface Invisibiliy Generation), but this system is slightly flawed, as a image on one side of the cloak is projected to the direct other at a right angle, meaning if you looked in the right spot, a particular image woud be 30-50 cm distorted away from where it is supposed to be, what they need is to have it hooked up to a computer in order to calculate the photon angle and project it properly.
If anyone has played Starcraft for ages, youll notice that the ships dont actually CLOAK, just distort light, and can still be seen, to a certain degree. This is very similar.
what comes next is FIG (field invisibility generation) which is your rumoured space-age 'invisibility fields' but such devices are limited to the emmision range, and, as such, if someone got close enough, they would go inside the feild and be able to see the cloaked object, while being cloaked themselves.

well i did this picture up real quick to explain myself..

now lets say the black dot is the person with the cloak. the person looking is..well the type that says person. directly in front of him is what the cameras see on the exact opposite side. now if he looks over to the right, he sees what is on the person wearing the cloak's left side so it infortunatly, it wouldnt work...

I read through the article and you know, even though its technically not *completely* invisible, it does distort an object to a point where it would probably be very hard to see. Instead of thinking of every day uses for it (sneaking into places) I would rather it be applied to the military. Imagine camo-netting on air defense batteries and parked vehicles that distorted against sand and forest in such a way that it looks merely like a small mound. Or having it be applied to stealth planes and helicopters, in which case, their invisible to radar, and if this were to be applied to them be invisible to sight too, immediately destroying any affect low-tech AA would have such as flak cannons or AA batteries that rely on machine guns or other direct-fire methods. Of course this is severely limited by things like cost factors, and exactly how would you coat a stealth plane in a cloth, besides that, i assume the cloak generates some sort of heat, dramatically lowering stealth capabilities. Though I understand it would be incredibly useful for soldiers and special ops, aswell as snipers.

"Some people are like slinkies, their not really useful for anything, but you cant help but laugh when you see one tumble down the stairs"

invisibility does work. Let the woman go to a sale and she nolonger sees the man.

You don't need perfect invisibility for it to work for camouflage. All you need is
enough of an effect to distort the appearance of what is there so that it is not recognizable. Pretty much what good camouflage already does but it requires the
camouflage wearer to be still as movement will give him away.

If you have something that renders you "transparent" or invisible, it may allow the wearer to remain in motion.

I believe that the cloak may be effective - in many cases you just need to cause confusion to be able to make the first move. It's still a long way to go till at least the "Predator" kind of thing (the one from the movie with Arnold), but it's a progress.

Wisdom comes with age. But sometimes age comes alone...