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Harry Potter's Invisibility Cloak Might Actually Happen, Thanks to Physics

by Caleb Johnson on November 15, 2009 at 08:31 AM

Hold onto those wands, all you would-be wizards. One of Harry Potter's most valuable possessions might soon make the jump from the page to the real world. According to The Daily Mail, researchers at Imperial College in London received an $8.1-million grant to develop an invisibility suit. That's right, you could throw on a garment and sneak around, just like Harry did while stalking the halls of Hogwarts.

The idea isn't as far-fetched as it initially sounds. When light hits an object, it bounces off the surface and into the eye, which is what makes it visible to us. Using "meta-material," these scientists want to force light waves to flow around an object (think water flowing around a rock in a river), not bounce off of it, which would make the object invisible to the eye. But right now, all this is simply theory. Next, the researchers must engineer a material that can manipulate light waves in such a manner. As we've said before, that's much easier said than done thanks to a little thing we call physics.

If this idea becomes reality (trust us, we're keeping our fingers crossed), we have one simple request: Please don't model the suit's look after Harry and the gang's school uniforms. That just doesn't work for us. [From: The Daily Mail]

Tags: harrypotter, hgg, invisible, light, physics, research, top

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