'Space-time cloak' could conceal events

[Hum]

(CNN) -- New materials with the ability to manipulate the speed of light could enable the creation of a "space-time cloak" capable of masking events or even creating an illusion of "Star Trek"-style transportation, according to scientists in London.

The cloak, while currently only existing in mathematical theory, takes advantage of the potential properties of "metamaterials" -- artificial materials designed and manipulated at a molecular level to interact with and control electromagnetic waves.

Scientists have previously demonstrated that one possible use of metamaterials could be to render objects invisible by bending light around them. But Professor Martin McCall of Imperial College London says he has now extended the concept of invisibility to a cloak also capable of hiding events both in time and space.

"In some senses our work is mathematically quite closely related to the idea of invisibility cloaking," McCall told CNN. "It's just that we're doing it in space and time instead of just in space. It's added a new dimension to cloaking, quite literally."

In a paper published in the Journal of Optics, McCall said metamaterials made it theoretically possible to manipulate light rays as they enter a material so that some parts speed up and others slow down. This could create "blind spots" in time, masking an event. While the accelerated light arrives at a space before an event has happened, the rest of the light doesn't reach it until after the event.

"If you had someone moving along the corridor, it would appear to a distant observer as if they had relocated instantaneously, creating the illusion of a Star Trek transporter," says McCall. "So, theoretically, this person might be able to do something and you wouldn't notice."

Alberto Favaro, who worked on the project, compared the process to moving a pedestrian across a highway full of traffic by speeding up those cars already at or beyond the crossing point while slowing down the approaching vehicles.

We've provided a theoretical recipe ... It's up to the experimentalists to rise to the challenge.

"Meanwhile an observer down the road would only see a steady stream of traffic," said Favaro.

McCall said the theory could have practical implications in the future for quantum computing by opening up new possibilities for signal processing.

"If you have two channels that are carrying information, one of which has a continuous stream of bits on it, our technique can interrupt that stream and then process the other channel as a priority. So it can act as an 'interrupt without interrupt.' The original channels can then be seamed back together as if they'd never been interrupted."

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[Warboy]

It can't be, It was time-locked!

[giantpotato]

I hope these metamaterials come in sand form and we can control them with a dagger. :shifty:

[mokthraka]

If this ever is created, and falls in to the wrong hands, imagine what would happen.

[Azusa]

If this ever is created, and falls in to the wrong hands, imagine what would happen.

No worries just send the X66 Mammoth.

[+M2Ys4U Subscriber¹]

I am highly sceptical.

[vincent]

I am highly sceptical.

Me too, sounds like crack pottery to me

[Kriz]

Me too, sounds like crack pottery to me

more like Harry Potter-y

[shakey]

more like Harry Potter-y

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of a time cloak.... like does it make those who look at something just see a still image of whatever is being used, and then it just instantly changes from screwed in to unscrewed when the cloak is gone? Or does it cause someone to just not understand really what they are seeing, and how it is being manipulated?

[Corris Veteran]

Cloak?

Pah, lame, warp drive please.

[carmatic]

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the concept of a time cloak.... like does it make those who look at something just see a still image of whatever is being used, and then it just instantly changes from screwed in to unscrewed when the cloak is gone? Or does it cause someone to just not understand really what they are seeing, and how it is being manipulated?

the whole thing depends on the fact that light takes time to travel from one place to another... and it travels slowly when it goes through certain materials, like glass etc

if you are looking at something, it means that you are receiving a constant stream of light from that direction... like, the light has to come from somewhere, like a lightbulb, and it passes through a window made of something transparent which slows the light down in a controllable way

to you, the lightbulb is constantly on...say the light is turned on for 2 seconds... but if the light which first comes out of the bulb in the first second comes through the window material quickly, while the light after that is slowed down... you have a brief period of darkness right after 1 second of light

and then if you slow down the first second of light with another one of those optical windows so you see a seamless 2 seconds of light, whatever happened during the period of darkness, between the optical windows, will not be seen

[Growled Member]

The cloak, while currently only existing in mathematical theory....

I think it's a long, long way from being invented. Interesting theory, though.