Scientists Close In on the Advent of an "Invisiblity Cloak"; Successfully Cloak a Free-Standing Obje - Polidicks

[QUOTE=LarparNar;34442839]No, if it reflected all light it would look like a curved mirror, but if it scatters individual photons, it won't.[/QUOTE] Wait what? I'm not sure if it's because it's early in the morning, but are you implying that light and photons are not one and the same?

I mean darker than a sheet of paper the same size and location, that is [editline]29th January 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Pierrewithahat;34442887]Wait what? I'm not sure if it's because it's early in the morning, but are you implying that light and photons are not one and the same?[/QUOTE] I think he means 'reflected all light' as in 'reflected all light in a uniform fashion' as opposed to diffuse scattering

[QUOTE=Pierrewithahat;34442887]Wait what? I'm not sure if it's because it's early in the morning, but are you implying that light and photons are not one and the same?[/QUOTE] No, I did not attempt to imply that, I used the word photons in the second part of my sentence to make it clear that it was individual photons instead of all of them being reflected at the same angle. [editline]29th January 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=Contag;34442900]I mean darker than a sheet of paper the same size and location, that is [editline]29th January 2012[/editline] I think he means 'reflected all light' as in 'reflected all light in a uniform fashion' as opposed to diffuse scattering[/QUOTE] First part, I don't know. Second part, yes.

Fair enough then, I thought you were saying that light and photons were different, and that is why you don't go to work on 4 hours of sleep :v:

[QUOTE=lulzbocksV2;34410523]So basically they didn't create an invisibility cloak they figured out a way to block microwaves from three dimensions. Lame[/QUOTE] Cloaking microwaves is a step closer to cloaking waves of visible light.

[QUOTE=LarparNar;34442839]No, if it reflected all light it would look like a curved mirror, but if it scatters individual photons, it won't.[/QUOTE] Yeah, I didn't take that into consideration, if it scatters all light randomly then it should appear white. It'd certainly be an interesting material, wouldn't have any specular highlights either I think.

[QUOTE=Sgt Doom;34422393] Nah, iirc the food is rotated in most microwaves in order to make sure there's even exposure to the microwaves.[/QUOTE] Yes of course, how does that even remotely relate to what I said?

[QUOTE=LordCrypto;34411312]invisibility cloak usually implies that the waves hitting it are actually visible to human eyes[/QUOTE] The article basically says that they just need to fine-tune the material to get it to repel the visible spectrum. Which probably won't be as difficult as creating the material in the first place. [editline]29th January 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=DainBramageStudios;34419120]I'm sure the actual scientists for this know exactly what they're doing, so I'm going to attribute this to bad reporting: Isn't that just what happens with normal objects? If the light hits the surface and gets scattered in every direction, that would just make it opaque. If you're on the other side of the object from a light source, the light source is going to be blocked because the photons coming from it aren't going to reach you.[/QUOTE] Actually, you've got it backwards. Opaque objects reflect photons back like a mirror. Transparent and semi-transparent objects are the ones that scatters light, that's why you can see through them. However this takes the photons and basically randomly scatters them in all directions, so your eyes wouldn't be able to absorb enough coherent light to create an image