…One Nation, Invisible…

Just five months after publishing the theory that a kind of invisibility can be achieved by shielding an object with special metamaterials, researchers have published results of an experiment that validates their hypothesis. Invisibility! How great is that?!

Well, not really invisible, but close, and they’re getting good results. Check out a related Scientific American article here. Essentially, electromagnetic waves will warp around an object situated in an enclosure made of Invisibilium, or whatever name they’ll come up with for the special lattice structural material. So if you point a flashlight at this object (or the rays of the sun fall on it), you won’t be able to see it, because the light waves just bend around it like water moving around a rock in a stream (see image above). One theoretical drawback: a person inside the enclosure wouldn’t be able to see out. A Romulan Bird of Prey would have a terrible time trying to navigate with their Cloaking Device enabled, let alone blast Captain Kirk and the Enterprise to smithereens with a trans-warp torpedo.

The lingering question for me is, will not the metallic enclosure surrounding our “invisible” object be visible? Is this the same principle as putting a penny in a shoe box and then saying that penny is now invisible? The mind reels.

Congressional Democrats Lambast Kim Jong II For Nuke Test

Dismayed and outraged that North Korean leader Kim Jong II’s purported test of a nuclear weapon has diverted national attention away from the Mark Foley male page scandal, leading Democrats in the House and Senate responded with cryptic rhetoric. “We believe the timing of this incident was, shall we say, not arbitrary,” said Senator Hillary Clinton. “Kim Jong, presumably, reads the papers like everyone else. He knew the Republicans have been reeling from the Foley debacle. And then all of a sudden there’s this weapons test. Coincidence? I think not.”

Senator John Kerry went further. “I’ve been informed by reliable sources that Ambassador John Bolton has been secretly sending Instant Messages to Kim Jong II. I can’t at this time reveal the exact transcripts, but the gist is that Bolton urged Jong to get on with his nuke test prior to the November elections. And that Jong’s hair style gave him a boner.”

The Amish Way

There’s a scene in the movie Witness, when the Harrison Ford character John Book, posing as an Amish farmer, buggies to town along with some other Amish folk. They encounter some local troublemakers who relentlessly harass them, and the Amish, as is their way, stoically ignore the taunts. But John Book (I’m not really Amish dammit!) ends up smashing in the face of one of the lowlifes, thereby ending the confrontation.

Audiences cheered. And so did I.

Reality is another story. The somber and grim Amish burying their children in Bart Township, PA. continue to ignore the media blitz and the onslaught of national attention, and I can’t help but feel admiration for their convictions, and now another tiny layer of cynicism has been peeled from my carapace.

A Dance in Space

Continuing our space related theme: to view an extraordinary photograph of the space shuttle and the ISS click on this link RIGHT HERE.