The concept of invisibility has always inspired fiction stories and movies. Two researchers from the University of Rochester have developed a system that uses only four lenses to hide an object. Their system uses cheap, readily available and off the shelf components. We tell you more about this technological innovation.
What if Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility became a reality? Joseph Choi and John Howell, are two researchers from the University of Rochester who have developed a system that can hide objects from the human eye. The two scientists did not need use sophisticated equipment or any revolutionary invention to achieve this result. “There are some existing high-tech techniques to achieve invisibility, the idea of making the light pas through without the use of advanced and exotic technologies is quite fascinating,” said Howell.
The system developed by the two researchers only uses 4 lenses that need to be aligned to achieve invisibility. The light is deflected so as to bypass the object to hide it, before being deflected again. To the human eye, the object is simply invisible, and is replaced by what is behind the lens. In the video, we see how a hand, a ruler, a pencil and a face become invisible.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtKBzwKfP8E[/youtube]
This ingenious system is probably the first step towards invisibility and one can imagine its applications in cinema, military camouflage, surgery or art. We plan to carefully monitor the progress of this technology as it represents a significant step towards invisibility. What would you do if you had the power to become invisible?