Scientists Make Item Invisible to Microwaves
"A team of American and British researchers has made a cloak of invisibility. In their experiment the scientists used microwaves to try and detect a copper cylinder. Like light and radar waves, microwaves bounce off objects making them visible and creating a shadow, though it has to be detected with instruments. If you can hide something from microwaves, you can hide it from radar and visible light. In effect the device, made of metamaterials — engineered mixtures of metal and circuit board materials, which could include ceramic, Teflon or fiber composite materials — channels the microwaves around the object being hidden. When water flows around a rock, co-author David R. Smith explained, the water recombines after it passes the rock and people looking at the water downstream would never know it had passed a rock. The first working cloak was in only two dimensions and did cast a small shadow, Smith acknowledged. The next step is to go for three dimensions and to eliminate any shadow." http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/10/19/1725243.shtml
So will US spys soon be sitting in at al Qada meetings? Will high school nerds be sneaking into girls showers?

Also read about it here:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20061019-14063600-bc-us-invisibility.xml

Will high school nerds be sneaking into girls showers?

Only if the girls have become somehow dependent upon microwave detection strategies rather than eyesight.

Only if the girls have become somehow dependent upon microwave detection strategies rather than eyesight.As was pointed out in the article:
If you can hide something from microwaves, you can hide it from radar and visible light.

Yes. But I note that this portion of the article is not a direct quote from the scientists.
I've been sitting here trying to access the actual paper at Science, but it's running incredibly slow today. Sure, the new issue is up on the web site, but I've never seen it run this slow before. I'll check it out tomorrow. Hopefully their bandwidth issues will be worked out by that time.

The thing is that it's always wise to take any popular media representation of scientific accomplishments with a grain of salt the size of the Empire State Building. The 'news' is all about sensationalism and hype.

Question: If hiding something from microwave detection is analogous to detection in the visible light spectrum, then why not make the initial experiment in the visible light spectrum?

Answer: It's not that simple.


Edit: Also, if you read the sciencedaily article, you'll find no mention of visible light. Although the catchphrase 'cloaking device' is used, it doesn't go so far as Yahoo news.
I trust sciencedaily to stay true to the intent of the original paper more than I trust Yahoo news.

Ok. Science is doing better today.
Here's the link to the abstract:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1133628v1

From the abstract:
"Recently published theory has suggested that a cloak of invisibility is in principle possible, at least over a narrow frequency band. We present here the first practical realization of such a cloak: "

Now.
I'm not a physicist so can't really analyze all the data in the full paper to determine exactly what this 'narrow band' might be.

But, I can tell you this.
Not once in the paper is the visible light spectrum mentioned.

Conclusion:
Media hype.

Who has the power to aquire such technology, how will it be regulated. I don't want anyone walking up on me, or spying on me.

its a long way from visual cloaking. we will worry about that elephant when it gets here.

Did some more digging and the original papers that presented the theory do mention visible light. But, I suspect that dealing with visible light is a bit more difficult than microwaves which is why microwaves were used rather than light.
After all, why would a scientist pass up the opportunity to make a huge splash rather than a small ripple?

Perhaps the 'narrow band' is about ease of implementation.

Links:

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/312/5781/1777
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/312/5781/1780

also, perhaps they can simply mask some of the "uncloaked" microwaves into the background. visible light would not be so easy to blend in.

I will have to read the paper some time, sounds interesting but time consuming.

This stuff seems to be a rehashing of old stealth bomber technology.

What makes you say that?
I'd say that it has pretty much nothing to do with old stealth bomber technology.

The set up is not 100%, and it relies upon the physical features of the composite used being the same size as teh wavelength of radiation being used. Hence, to make it work for visible light, they have to shrink the size of the components a huge amount, down to micrometres or below IIRC. Hence its a few years away from us. Also, visible light does cover a fair bit of wavelength, so if its baed upon physically channeling the photons around the item, its going to be hard to make it work for all wavelengths.

ALso, in use for showers, the steam and water droplets would condense upon the cloak, making it visible.

I remember reading about this in May on Sci-tech today.
http://www.sci-tech-today.com/

Actual article
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=11200BOJP67K

"Pendry predicted that demonstrating metamaterials that make an object invisible to radar -- not visible light -- might be possible within 18 months. Other scientists suggest it might be within five years."

I think Area 51 or the govt created it already. I watched a video of this man a top offical of the government, some general, retired. Dressed in uniform, told the news guy that what we see on star treck with the beaming from one place to another, and the energy used to power the starship, has already been done. "Been there done that". I think this lil cloak discovery is of no use to the higher ups. You might not see it on every soldier or w.e. because the Army can't afford it for everyone. Nor would they want the people to know about it. Thats my opinion.

Dressed in uniform, told the news guy that what we see on star treck with the beaming from one place to another, and the energy used to power the starship, has already been done. "Been there done that".

Dressing up in uniforms and appearing on TV is all it takes to convince you?

Bending EM around an object sounds eerily like the mythological(?) Philadelphia Experiment.

There is a technology that has been demonstrated which uses lasers to induce visible light transparency in otherwise opaque objects. Strangely enough, it is known as induced transparency if my feeble memory has got it right this time.

Sorry, I can provide no references.

When I visited Dubai exhibition, they prepared water fog screen and on that screen pictures were shown.
That means one can prepare such screen and make anything invisible.
This is already known.
P.J.LAKHAPATE
plakhapate@rediffmail.com

The laser induced transparency as well as the thread start technology do not depend upon projection of ilusionary images upon a "surface".