| ▲ | Metamaterials, AI, and the Road to Invisibility Cloaks(open.substack.com) |
| 35 points by Annabella_W 2 days ago | 18 comments |
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| ▲ | A_D_E_P_T 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| You don't need metamaterials. There are various patents on "invisibility cloak" systems, and most of them use screens and cameras to project what's behind the wearer onto the front-facing screen, e.g.: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2016160588A1 Some others, mostly intended for military vehicles, aim to match surface IR emissions to the background. Using metamaterials -- which need to be printed or, even worse, made with lithography techniques -- adds unnecessary cost and vastly increases complexity. |
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| ▲ | nine_k a day ago | parent [-] | | Screens have a very limited range of brightness. More importantly, they only project a picture in one direction, so, if you can move laterally, you'll notice that it's a flat picture. If metamaterials can alleviate any of that to some degree, they could make a form of invisibility cloak covering large objects practical. | | |
| ▲ | Annabella_W a day ago | parent [-] | | Agree, both screens and metamaterials for this application have their pros and cons. Manufacturing metamaterials at a large scale is an area I'm looking into next! |
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| ▲ | bilsbie 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Minor thing but how cool to use this on pillars of cars and have total visibility ? |
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| ▲ | Annabella_W a day ago | parent [-] | | This would actually be great! I guess the core challenge to achieving this would be in designing a metamaterial that meets the structural demands (strength-to-weight ratio) of a car body while also performing the complex wave manipulation required for invisibility. I wonder how far we are from reconciling those two very different requirements. Perhaps with the use of AI for metamaterials design we could be closer than we think! | | |
| ▲ | bilsbie a day ago | parent [-] | | They were talking about a cloak. So conceivably you just keep the existing materials and wrap this around it. |
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| ▲ | bovermyer 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| More than an invisibility cloak, I'd like to be able to "paint" my house with a programmable material that could change color/pattern. |
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| ▲ | nl 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=588610 from 2009, when it was first shown this was possible. Edit: and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2762325 which had more discussion |
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| ▲ | raugustinus 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| So confused when I read invincibility cloak. |
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| ▲ | Legend2440 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | You could probably make a bulletproof cloak out of kevlar right now. Might be a little stiff though. | |
| ▲ | Annabella_W a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Now that really would be science fiction haha! | |
| ▲ | Nevermark a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Ah yes, the dynamic structural assistance cloak. It is on the list. Along with the aerodynamic lift and propulsion cloak. The future is super. |
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