Scientists at Cornell University Invent Time Cloak

[Blackdrop]

Scientists at Cornell University Invent Time Cloak (http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-science/20120104/US.SCI.Invisible.Time/?cid=hero_media)

I, um, I honestly don't know what to think about the subject. It's kind of mind-boggling to think that such a thing is even possible.

[Reluctance]

I'd have to look more closely, but from just the article, it looks like they're talking about mucking with the speed of light in a medium. Which is cool, but impractical for any real purpose. Hiding the event will be harder when there's a huge apparatus around the whole thing. Actual time isn't affected in the least.

[Yora]

If they split the light impulse so one part gets red shifted and another blue shifted, they still have to combine the two again to make the transmited information reach its destination intact.
You'll never know the split took place, but how do you insert hidden data?

[Worira]

Ah, good old terrible sensationalist science reporting.

[TheCountAlucard]

The way the article starts out amuses me. Some of the biggest art heists did, in fact, involve a guy just coming in, taking the painting off the display, and walking away with it. Often while the place was actually open. :smallamused:

[blackfox]

Here's the actual article (http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1107/1107.2062v1.pdf). Pretty sure you can access it even if you don't go to Cornell; it worked for Worira, at least.

[Delwugor]

The news articles are really mangling the terminology, but since the original paper (thanks blackfox) uses them quoted it probably shows up as buzzwords for the reporters.

There is no holes in time, hiding in time or erasing time as implied everywhere. The researcher seem to have cloaked an event (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event_(relativity)) instead of just cloaking an object. The difference (I believe) is that cloaking an object is done in space ("spacial cloaking") while cloaking an event is done in spacetime. I guess the inaccurate term "time cloak" is used because its easier to grasp than "event cloak".

[Lanaya]

This seems to be a really bad idea. What non-military, non-criminal applications are there for invisibility anyways?

[Asta Kask]

Hiding in the ladies' shower? :smalltongue:

Or men's, if that's your fancy.

[hamishspence]

This seems to be a really bad idea. What non-military, non-criminal applications are there for invisibility anyways?

Avoiding the attention of dangerous animals- when you need to go somewhere full of them, but don't want to drive them away.

[Lanaya]

Hiding in the ladies' shower? :smalltongue:

Or men's, if that's your fancy.

Ah, yes. I forgot that creepy-as-**** isn't actually synonymous with illegal. Nevertheless, I feel my point still stands. :smallamused:

[Asta Kask]

Actually, I think that would be illegal.

[Siosilvar]

So, I got this explanation from my father (who does or used to do similar things to this):

They took a beam of light (green) and split it into a red part and a blue part. Then they put another pulse into the beam with a certain length, then combined the three parts. On the other side of this apparatus, the pulse that they put in the middle gets "squished" into essentially nothing between the red part and the blue part.

So in short: :smallconfused: