Harry Potter fans rejoice…or Why I love NPR’s Science Friday
So we all know that i am an ardent fan of NPR, despite the fact that they have not had one iota of coverage of Bret Favre. Well, i have now decided that Fridays are the coolest, because they are SCIENCE FRIDAYS!
So this Friday I was listening at lunch and there was a discussion about “negative refractory materials”. Now I am an admitted, nerd/geek/dork whatever you want to call it, but even i had to wiki this one. But, through the conversation (as i came in halfway through) i realized that a material had been created that would bend light around itself. Translation: IT’S INVISIBLE!!!!!! I was so excited. Can you imagine the posibilities????? Other than Harry Potter’s famous invisibility cloak, there has to be an unlimited number of applications for this technology. I tried, but every time i did there were some negative consequences.
Imagine this, Invisibility covers for your car, No one would know it was there and wouldn’t break in or steal it! Downside, people don’t see its there and might smash into it…..not good.
I am sure that there will be great applications for this stuff, but i just couldn’t think of any that didn’t have the downside of a possible, smashing, crashing, scraping, bumping, tripping, losing of some personal item….
UPDATE:
Jana recently placed a post-it on my desk with her comment on how useful the “invisibility clothing will be once perfected”. It was just to good not to share. Enjoy!
August 18th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Well, the scientist said that they had created a material that had a negative refractory index, so maybe they could eventually make like a cloth out of the material and then THAT could be put on humans…..
August 19th, 2008 at 9:45 am
OMG. I would say that I can’t believe you’d post my drawing for all to see, but - actually - I totally CAN believe that you would. You just have to appreciate the simplicity of it. Reminds me of and SNL skit… “Hi, my name is Simon… cheeky monkey.”