Has it always been your dream to be able to make yourself invisible, so you could sneak around without anyone knowing that you’re there? If so, you’re in luck: a Canadian company has invented an invisibility shield that can do just that. This is what you need to know.
The Invisibility Shield
This invisibility shield, called Quantum Stealth, invented by Canadian company Hyperstealth, is the closest thing to the invisibility cloak from Harry Potter that you can get.
Made from inexpensive material that’s as thin as a sheet of paper, this shield requires no power input and does an impressive job at hiding whatever is behind it. No, it does not make things exactly invisible, per se, but it does camouflage them to the point that they almost are. (1)
How the Invisibility Shield Works
The material that the Quantum Stealth is made of uses a technique called lenticular lenses. This is the same technique used to create photos that appear to be 3D, depending on your vantage point. (1)
It does this seemingly magical feat by bending light so that only objects that are very close or very far away can be seen. This means that from certain distances you will be visible, and then from others, you will all but disappear. (1)
The material can bend light from mid- and near-ultraviolet light to infrared, so when subjects behind the shield are viewed through a camera lens the effect is even stronger. It distorts the background enough that they will still be able to see that something is there, they just won’t be able to figure out what it is. (1)
An Innovation 10 Years in the Making
Guy Cramer of Hyperstealth has been developing this technology since 2010 alongside some military organizations. (1) He has filed four patents and published some videos explaining how the technology works.
Snell’s Law
Though the specific details of Hyperstealth’s technology are a tightly-kept secret, we do know that the physics of it are those of Snell’s law of Refraction. This law states that every material has its own refractive index, which relates to the speed of light in that material versus the speed of light in a vacuum (a space completely devoid of matter.). (1)
It is this law that makes pools seem more shallow than they actually are or that makes a straight straw appear bent when you put it in a glass of water. This is because the refractive index of each material will change the angle that the light passes through the two materials. If you use the right materials, you can change this enough that images will appear distorted or nearly invisible. (1)
Would you want to try out the Quantum Stealth invisibility shield?
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