The Elder
Wand and Resurrection Stone may still be locked away in J. K. Rowling's
imagination, but the third Deathly Hallow made a rare appearance on stage in
Long Beach this week.
Baile Zhang,
an assistant professor of physics at Nanyang Technological University in
Singapore, showed off his "invisibility cloak" on Monday at the
TED2013 talks in Long Beach.
Speaking as
part of TED Fellows Day, when young researchers, artists, and techno-geniuses
seen as being worthy of mentoring give short four-minute presentations, Zhang wowed the crowd with
his amazing cloak.
As you might
guess, Zhang's cloak is a bit different than the one Harry Potter wore. It's
tiny right now, very much in the prototype phase. And while you might expect it
to have some grand purpose, it doesn't. Zhang created it solely for fun.
Speaking
with editors at Boing Boing, Zhang explained that the cloak is made of two
optical crystals that are found in nature. When cemented together, they bend
light and suppress shadows to the point that they can hide objects. The demo at
the show saw the cloak (which is kept in a tiny clear box) make a Post-It note
vanish.
The TED talk
was the first time Zhang’s Invisibility Cloak has been shown publicly to a
large audience, though scientists have been enamored with it for years. In
2010, an earlier version of the cloak ranked fourth among the year's top 10
breakthroughs, as ranked by Physics World.
Some people
on Twitter were even more enthusiastic – although, it wouldn't be Twitter
without a little snark.
"In
race to invent cool random stuff, invisibility cloak on track to beat flying
car," noted Luke Buckmaster.
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