Invisibility: To see or not to see!

So, can something like an invisibility cloak from the Harry Potter stories be made? Not yet, but perhaps soon. It all involves something called metamaterials, which are essentially materials made up of simple electronic components in repeated patterns that give the material electromagnetic properties not occurring naturally in nature. Recently there has been work published postulating how such a thing could be achieved, and the effect was actually demonstrated recently in an experiment at Duke University in 2006. That experiment involved invisibility to microwave radiation, not visible light however, and in only one wavelength.

The concept seems to have been proven however, and the real hurdle right now is just to create a metamaterial with the correct properties for visible light.

Cloaking devices for aircraft, submarines and such appear to be simpler to achieve since the effect would not have to change shape the way a cloak over a moving human form would have to. In this article at Science Daily, it states that scientists believe invisibility will be possible for objects of any size and shape within the next ten years.

There is an interesting article at Scientific American about building a tunnel out of this material, and how it would appear like a wormhole: light passing through it would seem to be appearing from another dimension.

I've been having a lot of fun thinking of some of the more bizarre applications for this sort of technology, other than the obvious military applications and such. Imagine activating the anti-theft device on your vehicle in the parking lot, and it disappears! Of course then someone else trying to park might plow into it, so maybe not such a good idea after all... How about using it to hide the structural supports for a building so it appears to be floating in space? Or improving the view in some places by rendering industrial infrastructure invisible? How about a closet door that disappears once you close it, leaving only a blank wall? The problem with almost any use for it of course is similar to the parking lot problem- for most things, you have to be able to see them for safety.

It's going to be interesting to see what the next developments in this field will be, now that the theory for how to achieve this effect has been established. See you out there (or maybe not)!

Hydrogen Bus Fleet

So, is there a hydrogen bus fleet or a hydrogen highway? Not yet! But there will be soon in British Columbia. There is an $89 million project to develop a fleet of 20 hydrogen fuelled buses and fulling stations in Whistler, Vancouver, and Victoria to supply the "hydrogen highway". The plan is to have it operational for showcasing at the 2010 Olympics. In fact, in cooperation with the United States the highway is planned to be operational all the way to San Diego by 2010. There is a short article about it here at CBC.

Hydrogen fulled vehicles are ZEVs, which are zero-emission vehicles. The only by-products are pure water and heat. The only problem with them at the moment is that we produce hydrogen using methods that do pollute during the production process. However, if we do get the distribution infrastructure and the vehicles put in place, the production method could be altered to a more environmentally friendly method. This seems to be the most feasible approach to me, one step at a time. It would be impractical to move to alternate production methods before a market has been developed.

So how long until hydrogen vehicles are in the hands of the average consumer? There are prototypes out there, and the big companies are going to be showing them off in the near future. Considering the momentum that concern over climate change is imparting to environmentally friendly technological change now, perhaps we'll see them a lot sooner than most of us originally thought! I'll see if I can round up some of the news on the prototypes that are out there and do a little summary in an upcoming yeti tracks. See you out there!