Here is the article that accompanied this photograph - (from KNX newsradio)
Scientists: We Can Make You Invisible
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists say they are a step closer to developing materials that could render people and objects invisible.
Researchers have demonstrated for the first time they were able to cloak three-dimensional objects using artificially engineered materials that redirect light around the objects. Previously, they only have been able to cloak very thin two-dimensional objects.
The findings, by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Xiang Zhang, are to be released later this week in the journals Nature and Science.
The new work moves scientists a step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light, which could have broad applications, including military ones.
People can see objects because they scatter the light that strikes them, reflecting some of it back to the eye. Cloaking uses materials, known as metamaterials, to deflect radar, light or other waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream.
Metamaterials are mixtures of metal and circuit board materials such as ceramic, Teflon or fiber composite. They are designed to bend visible light in a way that ordinary materials don't. Scientists are trying to use them to bend light around objects so they don't create reflections or shadows.
It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.
The research was funded in part by the U.S. Army Research Office and the National Science Foundation's Nano-Scale Science and Engineering Center.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
While the photo itself is worth a thousand words, it's so sensational that I can't help but add a few of my own. There are many reasons why God did not create people and things with the option of invisibility. It messes with the laws of nature and disrupts our senses - our sense of safety and well-being for instance. Illusions are slight of hand meant for entertaining not for terrorizing. One of the things I appreciate the most about the physical world around me is how concrete it is. I like the certainty - the immovability - of the physics. Bad things happen when you monkey with things that should be a given.
The implications of this kind of technology are endless and I think it definitely falls into the category 'just because you can, doesn't mean you should'. I don't think that a creator should be disconnected from the practical and moral implications of the thing he has created. But that is just what is happening today - with increasing frequency.
Men used to take the time to consider what effect their discoveries would have on mankind. I doubt seriously that Ben Franklin, had he had access to today's technology, would relish being the known as the father of invisibility. I doubt he would have used his considerable mental resources on that pursuit knowing its obvious potential for misdeeds.
When we fail to excercise our hearts and minds simultaneously and ignore our God-given moral compass - that little voice in our head's that asks us to consider why instead of why not - we end up in dark places.
Interesting that the technology is based on refracting light and the art of misdirection. Our enemy's aka is the Angel of Light. He uses godless forms of light to create all kinds of illusions & counterfeits. The ultimate irony is he possess no light of his own but can only manipulate that which God created. The only thing that he can create is chaos and anarchy. When that light is no longer avaiable to him, he and everyone who followed after him will find themselves in complete and utter darkness. The ultimate bait and switch...
