Dan Parker
So, I'd have to spend a couple thousand dollars on a 3D printer that's only good for hobby stuff, who knows how much on ABS printer media, whatever the copyright fees are for the cloaking device's pattern and enough electricity to run the printer all night long. All of this to produce a chunk of plastic that will only block microwaves? Well, I suppose if I could wear it on my head I could get rid of all of my tinfoil hats, but I'm afraid it might render my cell phone useless.
Bruce H. Anderson
Maybe something like this could beat police radar. Not that I ever exceed the posted limit, mind you. Just curious.
JAT
Gee, an invisible bomb sitting right out in the open. If you think we've got security problems now just wait 'till this stuff gets developed further... I dread to think.
314159
No, you'd have to spend $500 on a 3D printer that's only good for hobby stuff, as that's all a ready built solidoodle costs. Unless you wanted to go to the trouble of making something like a reprap from parts, which would be far cheaper. The part he's holding would be $5 of plastic at most, but if you wanted to buy top quality ready extruded filament that might run you up to $50 if you didn't shop around at all. And the electricity to run a 3D printer overnight is about the same as an old 100W light bulb. You could buy the design off the guys who did the research, but I suspect they'd let you print it for personal use if you just asked. The pattern is right there in the picture. You can copy it in an hour on free 3D CAD software.
It's expensive if you don't want a microwave invisibility cloak, and if you can't think of anything else to do with a 3D printer. Of course, so far I've seen people print vacuum pumps, prosthetics, clothing, sculptures, toys, gifts, homewares, and more. Any price is expensive if you don't want the item. I still think this is an amazing bit of physics you could do yourself.
Gargamoth
I've seen a lot of cool stuff here, but I don't get how this thing is a cloak.
Walt Stawicki
for cop radar use the miltech paint, which because of the pigment size does the job of not reflecting. been around a while...good while.
sleat
Notice that it's only invisible at precisely that frequency.
It will be very hard (if not mathematically impossible) to make something that cloaks effectively from DC to light. Even harder to make something that cloaks multi-aspect. Multi-aspect means that both monostatic and bistatic radars (or other illuminative sensors) would find the object invisible.
The other thing, unless it is very cleverly powered, a sort of co-operative jammer if you will, it will always appear as a "hole" which is slightly absorptive of energy. So when the thing diffracts or blocks a known signal source, the source will distort or attenuate. If it's optical, it will likely also not work well with polarized light, or polarized sensors.
And even if it was possible, the thing still may make:
- A far-infrared thermal signature (if it's alive or powered by anything) - Noise (possibly lots of noise) - Reflections from ultrasound - Micro Seismic signals when it moves on the ground (that's how the Area 51 police know you're coming) - Compression waves when it moves through the air (that's how cockroaches know you're coming, they don't see you) - Ionization when it moves through the air quickly
Also, if the thing has any tactical significance, it will probably communicate, emitting RF. A directional antenna and spec-an could find it.
So I'm not excited yet. Probably soon.
Arahant
I agree with 314159.
Jim Pelkey
I could use this stuff on my cars and motorcycle to protect me from unwanted speeding tickets!
Aric Caley
My first (and only) thought about this is, could you make a container that would allow you to microwave your food and have only part of the food get hot while the other part stayed cold?
So.. maybe you could make a frozen, prepackaged hot fudge sundae that you could microwave and out comes a dessert with hot fudge and still frozen ice cream...