Scientists at the University of Rochester have discovered a way to hide large objects from sight using inexpensive and readily available lenses.
Cloaking is the process by which an object becomes hidden from view.
“A lot of people have worked on a lot of different aspects of optical cloaking for years,” John Howell, a professor of physics at the upstate New York school, said on Friday.
Photo: Reuters
The so-called Rochester Cloak looks like equipment used by an optometrist. When an object is placed behind a set of layered lenses, it seems to disappear.
“From what we know, this is the first cloaking device that provides three-dimensional, continuously multidirectional cloaking,” said Joseph Choi, a graduate student who helped develop the method at Rochester, which is renowned for its optical research.
In their tests, the researchers have cloaked a hand, a face, and a ruler — making each object appear “invisible” while the image behind the hidden object remains in view. The implications for the discovery are endless, they say.
Howell said the Rochester Cloak causes no distortion of the background object.
Building the device cost Howell and Choi a little over US$1,000 in materials and they believe it can be done even more cheaply.
They have released instructions on how to create a Rochester Cloak at home for under US$100.
There is also a 1 minute video about the project on YouTube.
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
INTENSIFYING THREATS: Beijing’s tactics include massive attacks on the government service network, aircraft and naval vessel incursions and damaging undersea cables China is prepared to interfere in November’s nine-in-one local elections by launching massive attacks on the Taiwanese government’s service network (GSN), a report published by the National Security Bureau showed. The report was submitted to the Legislative Yuan ahead of the bureau’s scheduled briefing at the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The national security team has identified about 13,000 suspicious Internet accounts and 860,000 disputed messages, the bureau said of China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan. The disputed messages focus on major foreign affairs, national defense and economic issues, which were produced using generative artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed through Chinese
COUNTERING HOSTILITY: The draft bill would require the US to increase diplomatic pressure on China and would impose sanctions on those who sabotage undersea cable networks US lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bipartisan bill to bolster the resilience of Taiwan’s submarine cables to counter China’s hostile activities. The proposal, titled the critical undersea infrastructure resilience initiative act, was cosponsored by Republican representatives Mike Lawler and Greg Stanton, and Democratic Representative Dave Min. US Senators John Curtis and Jacky Rosen also introduced a companion bill in the US Senate, which has passed markup at the chamber’s Committee on Foreign Relations. The House’s version of the bill would prioritize the deployment of sensors to detect disruptions or potential sabotage in real-time and enhance early warning capabilities through global intelligence sharing frameworks,
RSS