‘You Just Don’t Know Anything Ever Happened’: Scientists Create a Time-Masking Cloak
- Posted on January 4, 2012 at 2:57pm by
Liz Klimas
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(Image: Truthout/Flickr)
WASHINGTON (The Blaze/AP) — It’s one thing to make an object invisible, like the technology we’ve reported on that can make an armored tank disappear or nanotubes creating a mirage to mask objects. But scientists have made an entire event impossible to see. They have invented a time masker.
Think of it as an art heist that takes place before your eyes and surveillance cameras. You don’t see the thief strolling into the museum, taking the painting down or walking away, but he did. It’s not just that the thief is invisible — his whole activity is.
What scientists at Cornell University did was on a much smaller scale, both in terms of events and time. It happened so quickly that it’s not even a blink of an eye. Their time cloak lasts an incredibly tiny fraction of a fraction of a second. They hid an event for 40 trillionths of a second, according to a study appearing in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature.
We see events happening as light from them reaches our eyes. Usually it’s a continuous flow of light. In the new research, however, scientists were able to interrupt that flow for just an instant.
Other newly created invisibility cloaks fashioned by scientists move the light beams away in the traditional three dimensions. The Cornell team alters not where the light flows but how fast it moves, changing in the dimension of time, not space.
They tinkered with the speed of beams of light in a way that would make it appear to surveillance cameras or laser security beams that an event, such as an art heist, isn’t happening.
Another way to think of it is as if scientists edited or erased a split second of history. It‘s as if you are watching a movie with a scene inserted that you don’t see or notice. It’s there in the movie, but it’s not something you saw, said study co-author Moti Fridman, a physics researcher at Cornell.
The scientists created a lens of not just light, but time. Their method splits light, speeding up one part of light and slowing down another. It creates a gap and that gap is where an event is masked.
“You kind of create a hole in time where an event takes place,” said study co-author Alexander Gaeta, director of Cornell’s School of Applied and Engineering Physics. “You just don’t know that anything ever happened.”
This is all happening in beams of light that move too fast for the human eye to see. Using fiber optics, the hole in time is created as light moves along inside a fiber much thinner than a human hair. The scientists shoot the beam of light out, and then with other beams, they create a time lens that splits the light into two different speed beams that create the effect of invisibility by being too fast or too slow. The whole work is a mess of fibers on a long table and almost looks like a pile of spaghetti, Fridman said.
This diagram shows how the STL’s create a temporal “hole” in a probe beam such that any temporal or spectral changes caused by an event within this hole do not occur. (Image and Caption via Cornell University)
It is the first time that scientists have been able to mask an event in time, a concept only first theorized by Martin McCall, a professor of theoretical optics at Imperial College in London. Gaeta, Fridman and others at Cornell, who had already been working on time lenses, decided to see if they could do what McCall envisioned.
It only took a few months, a blink of an eye in scientific research time.
“It is significant because it opens up a whole new realm to ideas involving invisibility,” McCall said.
Researchers at Duke University and in Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have made progress on making an object appear invisible spatially. The earlier invisibility cloak work bent light around an object in three dimensions.
Between those two approaches, the idea of invisibility will work its way into useful technology, predicts McCall, who wasn’t part of either team.
The science is legitimate, but it’s still only a fraction of a second, added City College of New York physicist Michio Kaku, who specializes in the physics of science fiction.
“That’s not enough time to wander around Hogwarts,” Kaku wrote in an email. “The next step therefore will be to increase this time interval, perhaps to a millionth of a second. So we see that there’s a long way to go before we have true invisibility as seen in science fiction.”
Gaeta said he thinks he can get make the cloak last a millionth of a second or maybe even a thousandth of a second. But McCall said the mathematics dictate that it would take too big a machine – about 18,600 miles long – to make the cloak last a full second.
“You have to start somewhere and this is a proof of concept,” Gaeta said.
Still, there are practical applications, Gaeta and Fridman said. This is a way of adding a packet of information to high-speed data unseen without interrupting the flow of information. But that may not be a good thing if used for computer viruses, Fridman conceded.
There may be good uses of this technology, Gaeta said, but “for some reason people are more interested in the more illicit applications.”
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burdenedsoul
Posted on March 15, 2012 at 4:01amCrap I hope Obama doesn’t get his hands on this tech. He could make himself emperor of the world no problem. They could figure out how to create a camera with selective imaging, or even a projection device to alter the reality of a crowd, I can’t even imagine the implications on a small scale. I hope that this kind of power holds it’s secrets from science for a little while longer. We aren’t ready, humans are too power hungry and corrupt to even give such a device the the most imperceivable glimmer of hope for being used peacefully or without causing major changes in the world that we all now know.
Report Post »Question with BOLDness
Posted on January 6, 2012 at 11:01pmThat’s ALL we need, more technology! I think we have enough “technology” in the world to get into trouble with. (computers/viruses) And then we have people trying to steal your identity through various avenues. With people essentially being able to be “invisible” then 99% of them people will be “up to know good.”
Report Post »tharpdevenport
Posted on January 6, 2012 at 1:40pmWould this be anything like, for those more versed in this, be aything like that technology in an three episodes of “Star Trek: Voyager“ where you are simply ”out of phase” with time, off by a bit?
Report Post »right-wing-waco
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 7:44pmLets use it to erase the Obama regime.
Report Post »daisy715
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 6:01pmmaybe it’s time to disconnect HAL? I’ve been thinking about holograms alot lately.
Report Post »ThurstonHowellIV
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 5:54pmI didn’t give scientists permission to edit or erase a split second of my history. Where do I go to get it back?
Report Post »blyx
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 4:40pmThat’s nothing! They‘ve already invented ’Time-Masking Liquid.‘ It’s sold to the general public in bottles, cans, or on the tap
Report Post »Jabocx
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 4:00pmSounds like hope and change to me!
Report Post »weneedrubio
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 12:24pmMore bastardization of Einstein’s theory. They didn’t change a thing just how you view it. I am increasingly frustrated with the elites in our scientific and educational world. They constantly say they have evidence when it is nothing more than a cheap trick of illusion or liberal psychosis claiming huge gains when absolutly nothing has changed. This is nothing more than a sales ploy a la Apple, Microsoft, et al. Buy our new gadget it goes faster then yours is all they have to sell now. There is nothing new in the world just slicker packaging for all the suckers of the world. Someone needs to tell them that those suckers are running out of money.
Report Post »drphil69
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 2:21pmIf everyone had an attitude like yours, we would still be living in caves.
Report Post »Icnivad
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 7:43pmYeesh. What horrible turn in your life caused you to scorn advances in technology. A “cheap trick”? Wow. Are you the type of person who cringes when hearing words like “imagination”, “creativity” and such?
Report Post »Mr.Fitnah
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 8:01pmWell they cant really sell a paper bag to put over your head as a time masking device.
Report Post »HTuttle
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 10:02amLike all of this stuff, it affects perception of an event but the event and it’s other consequences still occur but the focus is always on the perception.
Report Post »Ruler4You
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 11:02amGee. What could possibly go wrong with using this technology?
Report Post »TROONORTH
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 11:22am“Like all of this stuff, it affects perception of an event but the event and it’s other consequences still occur but the focus is always on the perception”
Sort of like Ron Paul’s campaign you mean?
Report Post »IhaveOneToo
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 8:42amI need this technology fast. My wife thinks I’m at work.
Report Post »mrdoubtful
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 6:51amum…unless they have found a way to create and focus gravitational fields, not that would even do it…
Report Post »I’m sorry but with the information given in this article what they purport is just not what they did. Bending light does not equal altering the flow of time. the fact that the event was measurable from within or without the event is proof. if they succeeded they would have no knowledge of the event having ever transpired. I’m thinking there was a meeting on how not to lose their funding and this is what they came up with…
particle physics FAIL
4xeverything
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 7:22amExactly! The only way to prove their theories is to have “eyes” inside the event. The event has to be measurable. Theoretical physics is all it is. Emphasis on the theory.
Report Post »Xyskalla
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 12:00pmThat’s pretty much what I thought. The process they used does not match what they claim that they did. It’s still a good discovery, and maybe 30 or 40 years from now they’ll find some practical applications for it, but it has nothing to do with time.
Report Post »davidvgoliath
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 6:44amRayblue-the state I live in has been laying miles and miles of fiber optic cable….could this be useful in what the article stated about needing 18,000+ miles of f.o. cable? If it were installed coast-to-coast? I’ve witnessed much out-of-the-ordinary phenomena–I once read a very wise lady in Appalachia (my roots,) said,”It’s just meant for certain people to see certain things…“ Would this fiber optic ”view” allow anyone to see certain phenomena? Your experiments sound extremely interesting! Glad you commented!
Report Post »Rayblue
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 10:15pmSince I think everybody’s gone from this story, I’ll give some details. Hope y’all come back to read.
Report Post »In 2008 I began at a photography site trying to impress the photographers there with my ingenuity.
I didn’t even own a camera so I built a system with an infrared surveilence camera run into a monitor run into a copier. I made images with this and took photos of the copies with the camera in the Mac computer. I had some excellent results but the system was bulky and not very accurate. I next remembered a substance that was 95% reflective. How this idea of a substance came to me was from reading out of print books I had inherited from a doctor. He left his library to me in 1979 before he passed. The material was aluminum. Which has a clay base. I began to photograph sheets of flat aluminum with the Mac camera with just the light from the computer. Most of the results were trash. But It gave me new ideas. I started using an infrared light and an ultraviolet light. This was dangerous because the infrared is essentially a heat lamp and can’t be observed directly for the damage it would cause to the eyes. So after experimentation, I settled on plain deep red light with ultraviolet for the other end of the spectrum. These two ends of the visible spectrum are the best for the image production. I also learned after much research, what was happening during the process. I observed the high end and low end could be slowed by reflecting surfaces to the other color frequencies.(pag
Rayblue
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 10:43pm(page 2). This meant I could observe the slowing of light from invisible “ultraviolet” and dark red,“Infrared”*(as close as I could get to the invisible scale), and by reflecting the light off the multiple surfaces could capture images between the flow of wave particles. This type of experiment was used to measure light speed in early experiments by physics scientists. I also developed two random chance machines that took the handling of the material away from the observer. One was the “Rotating Wheel Of Doom”. The other was an idea from a Mars probe wind measurement devise. I named it the “Flutterby”. I’ve since abandoned them for the more hands on approach. Now this is where understanding may be the sticking point. But try to understand. I’m not trying to mislead anyone. But the facts and images came by themselves. I seem to be involved in a way not explainable by just normal photography. I’ll give the final details and a link to a site if anyone comes back and posts again. Thank you again for your interest. I’ve got to go now.
Report Post »pandora
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 4:20amWhat makes anyone think that this would be used for any good purpose? Just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD. Yes, technology is fun and fascinating. But all we seem to do as very primitive humans is find ways of doing bad things to people with it. Or at the very least distracting them from doing something more important.
Report Post »Rayblue
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 12:59amI stumbled on a secondary effect of the time between the highest frequency and lowest frequencies of light to capture the outside/inside images contained in my galleries. So far nobody understands the physics or believes the results. But I think soon, somebody will announce similar results and a big hoopla will commence.
Report Post »What my belief is that while this technology makes the visible invisible, my effort has made the invisible visible. I began my imaging in 2008 but left off in 2010 due to lack of enthusiasm.
blueman
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 1:22amGet enthused again, there is questions to be answered. I enjoyed your comment.
Report Post »Kaoscontrol
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 3:12amGive us a link to samples of your work!
Report Post »MrObvious
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 5:00amYes, samples please.
Report Post »This kind of stuff is both strange and fun.
If we could see shadows cast by dimensions beyond the main 3, how cool would that be?
dthomps6
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 1:16pmRayblue, I really want to see what you’re talking about. TheBlaze-could you see if you could get this guy to share some of his findings?
Report Post »Rayblue
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 9:24pmI’ve asked the blaze to at least feature my images but they never replied. The method I use does not have the fortunate option of believability. And even if they did look, the images are not what I’d call…normal. For want of a better word. I’ve given the site name several times but still nobody has responded. I think I’m expected to do more for myself but the misunderstandings the images incur have prevented this. I‘m going to wait for this story to go a little farther down the scale and then I’ll give the site name again. Thank you for your indulgence.
Report Post »Rayblue
Posted on January 6, 2012 at 12:27amHere’s an example of the images I create. It’s one I call “Ace”. It’s a red figure, rising from a grave with sunlight shining on the headstone. The headstone has faces illuminated. The red figure has a veil or cloth over it’s face. The cloth has an image of a mouth and nose and eyes. The figure is holding an ace of spades….I was curious and researched the cloth over the figures face. It turns out that this was the type of covering lepers used to present themselves when the disease had destroyed their facial features. Remember that I obtain these images by holding a flat reflective material in front of the computer camera. Nothing else was done. No photoshopping. No other technology that is so popular in creating fantastic images. Just me and the camera and a warning.
Report Post »Rayblue
Posted on January 9, 2012 at 8:02pmThe new blaze avatar is an example of the system at work. It’s one of two I call “crater dwellers”.
Report Post »Go to “EyeCatS@pbase” for 61 galleries.
Alan
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 12:47amThe power company does this all the time. Lights go out, everything is dark, I see nada.
Report Post »Then there’s the old telescope with a dirty lens trick.
Cat
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 4:58amAlan >
And the power bill never records the loss … making the invisible, suddenly visible.
Report Post »blueman
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 12:45amI could be convinced, I have experienced a paranormal creature that has thousands upon thousands baffled. I am a witness of the Sasquatch. This theory has been suggest before, but always excused, this article brings it to more of an understanding.
Report Post »mauijonny
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 12:45amCould we go back to late Nov. 2008, early 2009?
Freakishly amazing.
Report Post »mamatango
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 2:20amLOL, how about all the way back to January 2008, Iowa?
Oh, but then we’d miss the PROPHETIC “Bye Bye Miss American Pie!”
I could live with that!!!
Report Post »zagros
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 7:00amThe hell with going back to 2008. I want to go back to September 11, 2001 and stop all those hijackers on 9-11 before they boarded the planes! Or maybe even September or October 1956 and convince that Bin Laden’s mom to have an abortion (he was born in March 1957). Then go back to 1912 and convince Roosevelt to not run against Taft. Then go back to October or November 1888 and convince Hitler’s mom to do the same (he was born in April 1889). Finally, go back to October or November 1869 and convince Lenin’s mother to do the same (he was born in April1870). Do these four things and we get back the right country. If we stopped the rise of Hitler, Bin Laden, and Lenin before they happened onto the scene (along with ensuring the Federal Reserve never existed), maybe we could have had a truly free country.
If Roosevelt doesn’t run against Taft in 1912, Wilson is not elected. Without Wilson, there is no Federal Reserve. Without the Federal Reserve, we have sound money and no Great Depression.
With no Great Depression, we don’t get FDR and his welfare state expansion.
With no Hitler, we don’t get WWII.
With no Lenin, Communism doesn’t get started in Russia and we have no Communist threat in the world.
All of America’s problems solved.
Report Post »jb.kibs
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 12:42amthey use 2 lenses to do this? aren’t they just bending the light around the object? like looking through a magnifying glass from far away and not being able to see everything clearly… or a crystal, etc…
. David Copperfield used mirrors and lenses to hide “Events” from people… wow these people have wasted their lives. ;)
Report Post »dthomps6
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 1:19pmTo mean it sounds more like laser interferometry. The light wave intersect in a certain pattern leaving dark spaces. I did some of this stuff in college.
Report Post »TH30PH1LUS
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 12:41amTesla would be proud of you!
Report Post »your sensei
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 12:16amA lot like GB’s blackboards. A+B+C = Obama’s a terrorist!
Report Post »Scooder
Posted on January 5, 2012 at 8:24pmAt least you got the right answer!
Report Post »avgconservative
Posted on January 4, 2012 at 11:51pmUh-oh… not enough pictures of video for the typical Blaze reader. (Yawn)
http://FlipTheLib.com
Report Post »sonseeker
Posted on January 4, 2012 at 11:12pmI believe the machine would need to be 186,000 miles long, you dropped a zero…anyway the proof of concept is suprisingly simple and cool.
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