In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Roy Schestowitz
<newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote
on Thu, 31 May 2007 03:55:15 +0100
<9096926.8csGYFsqFL@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> __/ [ nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ] on Thursday 31 May 2007 03:17 \__
>
>> On May 30, 6:18 pm, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> wrote:
>>> Open-source software makes the invisible man
>>>
>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>> | A University of Liverpool mathematician claims 30-year-old
>>> | open-source software has cracked the equation that will allow
>>> | scientists to make objects - such as humans, tanks or even
>>> | entire islands - invisible.
>>> `----
>>>
>>> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/114297/open-source-software-makes-the-inv...
>>
>>
>> Unfortunately, I'm afraid this guy is a crackpot. Also, to talk about
>> "cracking" Maxwell's equations is absurd. Too bad.
>
> I thought so as well, but the Web site has reputation (or shall we say
> "had"?). I didn't read the article carefully (almost none of it).
>
> In Slashdot, some 'cloak of invisibility' milestones were mentioned recently.
> It seems pointless.
>
An invisibility device was demonstrated recently on
more reputable websites, with some *very* interesting
limitations.
[1] Microwave regions only.
[2] Only for one specific wavelength.
Not exactly useful for hiding things from human eyes,
though it might work against radar -- for awhile.
A more promising technology would have the user simply
wear a cloak, studded with lots of light emitters and
tiny cameras. The cloak would project the image of the
back onto the front, effectively making him hard to see.
The limitation there is that a viewer at an angle will
see the illusion all too readily. (In raytrace terms,
it's the difference between a transparent object and an
object with a texture that happens to match what's directly
in back of it.)
One could also contemplate a weird prism or grating device;
such a device would be useless for actual seeing but
would pick out any such illusion if it's based on tricolor
additive color mixing. (Most computer monitors use such
-- three phosphors, red, green, blue.) A white sunbeam:
smear of colors. A white monitor screen rectangle: fairly
sharply delineated red, green, and blue lines.
One might be able to see them using a simple CD, which acts
a bit like a diffraction grating.
A future in invisibility technology is rather, ahem, hard to see.
--
#191, ewill3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Conventional memory has to be one of the most UNconventional
architectures I've seen in a computer system.
--
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