Scientists Cloak 3-D Objects

Scientists Cloak 3-D Objects

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After five years of steady progress, scientists are now edging closer and closer to mastering real-world invisibility. While researchers have already made marked strides toward making objects unseeable, much of the work was more like mimicry: Meta-materials that bent light around an object to conceal it, but only worked in two dimensions. Or a device that played tricks on the eye, by harnessing the mirage effect to make objects behind it “disappear.”

Now, a team of researchers have taken an incredible leap forward. They’ve successfully made a 3-D object disappear. A group of scientists at the University of Texas at Austin have figured out how to “cloak a three-dimensional object standing in free space.” That means the object is invisible, from any angle of observation.