In science fiction, invisibility cloaks let their users vanish from sight and sneak around unnoticed. How could one of these stealthy pieces of clothing work? Scientists have some ideas, which involve bending light. Discover the science and technology behind what it would take to make a real-life invisibility cloak!
In science fiction, invisibility cloaks let their users vanish from sight and sneak around unnoticed. How could one of these stealthy pieces of clothing work? Scientists have some ideas, which involve bending light. Discover the science and technology behind what it would take to make a real-life invisibility cloak!
A lightly surreal story of misfortune, menace, and high-end stereo equipment in the cutthroat, capitalistic world of modern China. An NYRB Classics Original The hero of The Invisibility Cloak lives in contemporary Beijing—where everyone is doing their best to hustle up the ladder of success while shouldering an ever-growing burden of consumer goods—and he’s a loser. Well into his forties, he’s divorced (and still doting on his ex), childless, and living with his sister (her husband wants him out) in an apartment at the edge of town with a crack in the wall the wind from the north blows through while he gets by, just, by making customized old-fashioned amplifiers for the occasional rich audio-obsessive. He has contempt for his clients and contempt for himself. The only things he really likes are Beethoven and vintage speakers. Then an old friend tips him off about a special job—a little risky but just don’t ask too many questions—and can it really be that this hopeless loser wins? This provocative and seriously funny exercise in the social fantastic by the brilliantly original Ge Fei, one of China’s finest living writers, is among the most original works of fiction to come out of China in recent years. It is sure to appeal to readers of Haruki Murakami and other fabulists of contemporary irreality.
Suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of engineering, physics, and mathematics and scientific researchers of all types, this is the first authoritative text on invisibility and the science behind it. More than 100 full-color illustrations, plus exercises with solutions. 2010 edition.
In science fiction, people upload their minds into computers for them to be stored. How could this futuristic way of preserving the mind work? Scientists have some ideas, which involve mapping the brain cell by cell. Discover the science and technology behind what it would take to upload a mind in real life
Science is said to be on the verge of achieving the ancient dream of making objects invisible. Invisible is a biography of an idea, tied to the history of science over the "longue duree." Taking in Plato to today s science, Ball shows us that the stories we have told about invisibility are not in fact about technical capability but about power, sex, concealment, morality, and corruption. Precisely because they refer to matters that lie beyond our senses, unseen beings and worlds have long been a repository for hopes, fears, and suppressed desires. Ideas of invisibility are, like all ideas rooted in legend, ultimately parables about our own potential and weaknesses. Invisible presents the first comprehensive survey of the roles that the idea of invisibility has played throughout time and culture. This territory takes us from medieval grimoires to cutting-edge nanotechnology, from fairy tales to telecommunications, from camouflage to early cinematography, and from beliefs about ghosts to the dawn of nuclear physics and the discovery of dark energy. Invisible reveals what our age-old fantasies about what lurks unseen, and whether we can enter that realm ourselves, truly say about us. "
Lileth Shadow, princess of darkness, is struggling with her growing powers. Castle Gloom is filling with ghosts and zombies roam the country. Then Lily is attacked by a mysterious sorcerer known as Dreamweaver and his army of jewel-spiders. Can Thorn and his giant bat save Lily from the realm of sleep and help her overcome the evil Dreamweaver?
In science fiction, jet packs let people zoom through the air at high speeds. Discover the science and technology behind what it would take to make a real-life jet pack!
Sixtee-year-old "Slam" Harris is counting on his noteworthy basketball talents to get him out of the inner city and give him a chance to succeed in life, but his coach sees things differently.
Transformation electromagnetics is a systematic design technique for optical and electromagnetic devices that enables novel wave-material interaction properties. The associated metamaterials technology for designing and realizing optical and electromagnetic devices can control the behavior of light and electromagnetic waves in ways that have not been conventionally possible. The technique is credited with numerous novel device designs, most notably the invisibility cloaks, perfect lenses and a host of other remarkable devices. Transformation Electromagnetics and Metamaterials: Fundamental Principles and Applications presents a comprehensive treatment of the rapidly growing area of transformation electromagnetics and related metamaterial technology with contributions on the subject provided by a collection of leading experts from around the world. On the theoretical side, the following questions will be addressed: “Where does transformation electromagnetics come from?,” “What are the general material properties for different classes of coordinate transformations?,” “What are the limitations and challenges of device realizations?,” and “What theoretical tools are available to make the coordinate transformation-based designs more amenable to fabrication using currently available techniques?” The comprehensive theoretical treatment will be complemented by device designs and/or realizations in various frequency regimes and applications including acoustic, radio frequency, terahertz, infrared, and the visible spectrum. The applications encompass invisibility cloaks, gradient-index lenses in the microwave and optical regimes, negative-index superlenses for sub-wavelength resolution focusing, flat lenses that produce highly collimated beams from an embedded antenna or optical source, beam concentrators, polarization rotators and splitters, perfect electromagnetic absorbers, and many others. This book will serve as the authoritative reference for students and researchers alike to the fast-evolving and exciting research area of transformation electromagnetics/optics, its application to the design of revolutionary new devices, and their associated metamaterial realizations.