Wednesday - May 03, 2006

Where No Man Has Gone Before

We’re getting closer and closer every day to fulfilling the dream of Star Trek. The US is working on phasers (and probably photon torpedos but we can’t tell you about it) and now the Brits have announced they have broken the secret of cloaking devices. Meanwhile in Iran, the Borg are trying to figure out what to do with all those tribbles that Harry Mudd over in North Korea sold them. Mheh-heh-he-he ....

_{(Psssst! EYES ONLY: Before you start asking about the trans-warp drive development project, it’s in the works out at Groom Lake. Sshhhhhh.)}

Cloaking Device Idea Proposed
_{Wednesday, 3 May 2006, 16:34 GMT 17:34 UK}

LONDON (BBC)—The cloaking devices that are used to render spacecraft invisible in Star Trek might just work in reality, two mathematicians have claimed.

They have outlined their concept in a research paper published in one of the UK Royal Society’s scientific journals. Nicolae Nicorovici and Graeme Milton propose that placing certain objects close to a material called a superlens could make them appear to vanish.

It would rely on an effect known as “anomalous localised resonance”. However, the authors have so far only done the maths to verify that the concept could work.

Building such a device would undoubtedly pose a significant challenge. Cloaking devices are a form of stealth technology much favoured by Star Trek baddies such as the Romulans and Klingons.

The complex mathematical phenomenon outlined by Milton and Nicorovici closes the gap a little between science fiction and fact. The phenomenon is analogous to a tuning fork (which rings with a single sound frequency) being placed next to a wine glass. The wine glass will start to ring with the same frequency; it resonates.

The cloaking effect would exploit a resonance with light waves rather than sound waves. The concept is at such a primitive stage that the scientists talk only at the moment of being able to cloak particles of dust - not spaceships. In this example, an illuminated speck of dust would scatter light at frequencies that induce a strong, finely tuned resonance in a cloaking material placed very close by.

The resonance effectively cancels out the light bouncing off the speck of dust, rendering the dust particle invisible. One way to construct a cloaking device is to use a superlens, made of recently discovered materials that force light to behave in unusual ways.

- More Klingon technology at the BBC ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 05/03/2006 at 02:29 PM   
Filed Under: • Science-Technology •  
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