me and a coworker were talking about invisibility, but how it sux cuz all your really invisible from is visible light right? you can still be seen with infrared and others... but what if you were invisible to everything. would you merely be a consciousness undetectable to anything. its hard to explain. he asked me would super power i would have i anything. i said ultimate invisibility. he tried to explain how if no light could hit me, and i couldnt be seen by anything or detected, then i wouldnt exist. he wasnt talking in a psychological way like if i cant see it, it doesnt exist. any light someone can shed on this topic? or at least ramble about it?

oh you would exist you would just be blind. Lets say hypothetically we put a feild around you that bends all light around you making you perfectly invisable.

Unless you bump into something lol

any light someone can shed on this topic? or at least ramble about it?

No pun intended Im sure :D :D

oh you would exist you would just be blind. Lets say hypothetically we put a feild around you that bends all light around you making you perfectly invisable.

You would still be seen as the dark patch because light would still be hitting everything else right?! What we are looking for is a way of making all light pass through u. Definitely not possible for all EM wavelengths.

No you would not be seen as a dark patch as no light is absorbed, its bent around you. Try the imagine the opposite of a black hole (a anti-gravity hill crater) where light cannot get through and is curved around. If you were inside such a field you would not be able to touch or sense anything outside the hill, you would also grow very hot as no energy inside the hill crater could escape.

Oh sorry I see now.

Question though: why couldn't energy escape this field? What IS the field?

aaaah anti-gravity... I think I mentioned that, and if you made the field strong enough so that light could not penetrate also no matter would ever have the speed to penetrate either; Though now that you mention it magnetic and gravitational fields could penetrate.

The concept in HG Wells' "The Invisble Man" was to reduce the body's refraction of light until it exactly matched that of air. If this were possible, the invisible man might become visible again underwater. And he'd still be blind, because the retinas of his eyes wouldn't absorb light any more than the rest of him.

The car stealth technology depicted in "Die Another Day" was composed of a web of photo-sensors, fibre-optic conduits and light-emitting cells which relay every light beam incident on a vehicle to the opposite side, where it is released in the same direction instead of being reflected. I suppose the windows would need a one-way partial transparency; I'm not sure if the wing mirrors could still work in stealth mode.

Do you think any of this might be achievable, WellCookedFetus?

Active camouflage, sure.

Here is a real crude system already demonstrated:
http://csdl.computer.org/comp/proceedings/ismar/2003/2006/00/20060348.pdf

aaaah anti-gravity... I think I mentioned that, and if you made the field strong enough so that light could not penetrate also no matter would ever have the speed to penetrate either; Though now that you mention it magnetic and gravitational fields could penetrate.

I still don't see how heat energy would build up inside this anti-gravitational field :confused:

If no light or energy can escape, entropy takes effect and the heat you give off bounces back in a positive feed back loop, it gets hotter and hotter. You can simulate this by wearing a winter coat in summer. except This feild is a perfect closed system and you will get really really hot eventually.

If no light or energy can escape, entropy takes effect and the heat you give off bounces back in a positive feed back loop, it gets hotter and hotter. You can simulate this by wearing a winter coat in summer. except This feild is a perfect closed system and you will get really really hot eventually.

I wonder how hot it must get inside the event horizon of a black hole? Especially if the the gravitational potential energy released by the final collapse of the star cannot escape.

Oh, and thanks for the active camouflage link.

If no light or energy can escape, entropy takes effect and the heat you give off bounces back in a positive feed back loop, it gets hotter and hotter. You can simulate this by wearing a winter coat in summer. except This feild is a perfect closed system and you will get really really hot eventually.

I was basically repeating the question I asked before but in a different way. HOW could energy not escape an anti-gravitational field? Any energy at all.

Just like how could energy escape a black hole. In my anti-gravity field everything has to try to get up this anti-gravity hill, not even light can get up as such nothing can get in or out.

OK I don't know what u are envisioning as an anti-gravity field but I am imagining one that does the opposite of gravity. That is; it pushes everything away from it depending on its mass. Now theres plenty of reasons why this could never happen (if it depended on an objects mass) so is this what u mean???

yes, though a anti-gravity field pushes everything way not dependent on is mass. gravit pulls all thing down at the same rate, anti-gravity pushes everthing way at the same rate, if it exists that is.

Well then there will be a constant stream of energy being emitted from the body and no energy will be able to go in the other direction. It will be the exact opposite of what u say. A body will actually lose more energy than it would if it had normal gravity or even no gravity at all! It certainly will not get hotter!

No because the anti-gravity field is shaped like a space-time crater with the generator in the cavity of the crater, nothing can enter the field (as it would have to go up the crater's outer wall) and nothing can leave the crater (as it would have to go up the crater's inner wall)

No because the anti-gravity field is shaped like a space-time crater with the generator in the cavity of the crater, nothing can enter the field (as it would have to go up the crater's outer wall) and nothing can leave the crater (as it would have to go up the crater's inner wall)

Perhaps you guys can avoid this confusion by describing your invisibility field not as anti-gravity, but simply a distortion of space which bends the path of light. Gravity / anti-gravity implies a definte toward or away orientation; what you need doesn't have to involve any "up" or "down" for the light, merely a detour around something.

<quote>me and a coworker were talking about invisibility, but how it sux cuz all your really invisible from is visible light right? you can still be seen with infrared and others... but what if you were invisible to everything. would you merely be a consciousness undetectable to anything. its hard to explain. he asked me would super power i would have i anything. i said ultimate invisibility. he tried to explain how if no light could hit me, and i couldnt be seen by anything or detected, then i wouldnt exist. he wasnt talking in a psychological way like if i cant see it, it doesnt exist. any light someone can shed on this topic? or at least ramble about it?</quote>


<i>Let's take this one at a time,</i>

<b>xeth:</b> point#1: -me and a coworker </i><p>
<I><b>HOWARDSTERN: <i>yes, I agree that you have minds of cows</b></i><p>
<b>xeth: </b> point#2:-were talking about invisibility<p>
<i><b>HOWARDSTERN: OK, I do not dispute that you and your cow friend can conceive such an idea</b></i>

<b>xeth: </b> point#3:- but how it sux cuz all your really invisible from is visible light right?

<i><b>HOWARDSTERN: Not true, Xeth. Hellllll, I've been invisible to POrfiry, from the beginning, to one extent or level_to another(great friend(but example, nonetheless)). Actually, Xeth, invisibility can be percieved as a state of logic______-,or illogic......</i></b>.

<b>Xeth: </b>but what if you were invisible to everything.

<b><I>HOWARDSTERN: Xeth, you're talking about the possibility of masking out all electromagnetic matter based signatures.

1) Visible light- Visible light is no different than infared light. See it this way, Xeth: we're talking about magnetic resonations from matter......

a)..sub...Xeth....?????..hohum..okokokokokok..ok! ..every teaspoon of matter holds the consciousness of the universe.........na...too deep Xeth, besides, Stryder& his queer buudy Perzol might be tuning ing..in........

B0) sub..sunb..????? okokokokokokook..ok, here Xeth,.////... hmnn...see c) sub

C) Well Xeth, I think that Sir Charles Darwin's observations still over shadow all 21st century science to this very day, as I have listed it_040804_0309_23.

C1) Cutting a long story to short.......Xeth , visible light and infared (heat) are only separated by resonations of their primary matter forms(forums).

Hoped that I helped, Xeth.....Actually I have high regARD FOR cOw gODS)_iNDIA & SHIT.

Just remember Xeth, ..............every time that your Cow Friend Microwaves a burrito............(s)he is matching the base matter/water frequency../matter and multiplying it...............

Nature came up with a viable way to provide invisibility, a long time ago.....camoflauge........ask me about the true definition of camoflauge..sometime, m yfriend. I shall enlighten!

ummmm ***confused silence*** could you make it so that something absorbs visible light and re-radiates it as UV of something like that?

Yes Comrade hamster we can but then the object is not invisible, instead it appears black. For example try any black paint, which takes light and re-radiates it as IR light.

Just because you're invisible doesn't mean you can't see anything. It could be that you absorb some of the light comming in, and then exert some energy to emit the same (or close to the same) light on the other side.

[/super power discussion]

Yes but we were talking about perfect invisibility not active camouflage.

Perfect as in any electromagnetic wave will pass right through the person or object? Not simply retransmitted after having been absorbed?

Perfect in that the object is not detectable by EM waves. Cannot be detected by reflection of light or distortion of light or absorption of light. Such a level if invisibility would require that you either be transparent like air and have the same refractive index as air (basically be as dense as air!) or bend light around you perfectly so that no distortion can be detected.

Well, if you can't tell the difference between the initial wave, and the remitted wave then it would be perfect invisibility.

There is not way you could get perfect invisibility with active camouflage.

quote:
"Perfect in that the object is not detectable by EM waves. Cannot be detected by reflection of light or distortion of light or absorption of light."

How about Dark Matter, The stuff that makes up 23% of the universe?

sure particles to small to be picked up by EM waves sure.

There is not way you could get perfect invisibility with active camouflage.Why?
(obligatory extra characters here)

There'd always be some distortions around the edges, and no solid surface could be completely lacking in reflectivity. A house windowpane may seem perfectly transparent from inside, but from the sunlit outside it will reflect some of the light incident upon it.

what Starthane Xyzth said.

There'd always be some distortions around the edges, and no solid surface could be completely lacking in reflectivity. A house windowpane may seem perfectly transparent from inside, but from the sunlit outside it will reflect some of the light incident upon it.As long as we are talking about using blackholes and changing the refractive index of our bodies, this is not exactly a further leap.

Likewise, even 'bending' the light around you will result in a change in reflectivity.

So, I suppose that if sci-fi writers want to sound remotely credible when describing an invisibility technology these days, they have to retreat into Star Trek-type doubletalk about quantum multiphasic shifting and spatial distortions.

Perfect Invisibility: Create a complete body suit which aborbs the light from the back area and emits the same complexity through the front of the suit. Have the front side of the suit do the same for the back and same goes for the sides. Walla we have perfect invisibility.

… and what happens if you look at this "invisible suit" at a different angle? Let say your looking at the suit from not strait on but at an odd angle, every point on the suit would have to beam a different images across 180+ degree so that no matter what angle your looking at the suit it would make a perfect image of what’s behind it.

If we were to make a screen of LED and color changing pixels on a suit it could only make an image in one direction so if you look at the suit from any angle other then that set direction you could see that its image is off from the background and thus detect the suit.

Active camouflage as is, is not perfect invisibility by far. It would allow you to blend into your surroundings like normal camouflage does except normal camouflage is set to a specific surrounding. Active camouflage can change to any surroundings, So you could go from looking like jungle grass to looking like concrete brick without changing suits.

The simple and obvious way to become invisible is to make everyone around you blind! Spread some kind of optic nerve agent, or just plunge your environment into total darkness if possible...

@Vortox: I really like your avatar.

Ultimate Invisibility #2: Move faster than the speed of light

ya but then anyone behind you would see your superluminescent boom.

ya but then anyone behind you would see your superluminescent boom

Yes but the results will leave you completely unseen.

From in front only until after you pass them.

From in front only until after you pass them.

But they won't even realize you where there, let alone realize you passed if you going faster than light.