Engineering Design Makes Science Fiction Fact
July 17th, 2009. Published under Science. No Comments.
Invisibility cloaking devices were once exclusive to the realm of science fiction, such as the infamous Klingon cloaking shield in Star Trek or even the ability of Predator to remain hidden from potential prey in the series of films of the same name. The talents at the forefront of engineering design however have brought the reality of such technology a few steps closer with the development of metamaterial, which has the potential to emulate the properties of a garment owned by a certain fictional teenage wizard.
Metamaterial is notoriously difficult to make, but engineering design capabilities have improved to a degree where not only could an object be rendered invisible, it could give the illusion that it is another object entirely. The notion that a person could be looking at what they believe to be a car which is in fact a building is a potential that the military are keen to investigate.
In times of conflict, using metamaterial as a cloaking device or to create an illusion is the ideal way to hide the presence of entire armies and the equipment that accompanies them. The technology works by bending light around an object using a combination of wires and concentric washers. To produce a successful result, the width of each component in metamaterial needs to be smaller than the wavelength of the light to be distorted.
At present, the smallest design means that invisibility can only be achieved at microwave level, to achieve invisibility for visible light wavelengths, metamaterial components will need to be made using nano technology. Specialists in the field believe that engineering design is getting close though, with new materials that can not only bend light around an object to cloak it, but can emulate the light bent by a particular object so it appears to be something else.
The military applications are obvious, but like many things developed for use in the battle field, they eventually come into use in the public arena. If the technology improves sufficiently and can become economically viable, it is possible that engineering design capabilities can mask our built up surroundings with something more aesthetically pleasing. There is for instance a great resistance to the erection of wind turbines as they are considered a ‘blot on the landscape’ by local residents.
Using cloaking devices to make them invisible to the naked eye would prove hazardous, but using metamaterials to make them look like another object, such as a giant sequoia, would be more acceptable. The only downfall of this strategy is that it has the potential to turn our natural world into a place that resembles the CGI aesthetics of science fiction.
Dom Donaldson is an engineering expert.
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