A SAMPLE WORKING OUTLINE

1. After surviving a cosmic storm, comic book heroine Susan Storm was amazed that she was still alive and even more amazed that she had gained the power to become the Invisible Woman. By creating a force field, she was able to bend the light waves around her so as to not be seen. Now this may sound like science fiction, which it is—for now.
2. Today we will take a look at advances in the science of invisibility.
3. These developments have the potential to affect every aspect of our lives, from aesthetics, architecture, and entertainment, to the military, telecommunications, and transportation. •
4. After conducting library research and interviews with professors on campus, I have been amazed to learn about the process of invisibility.
5. To understand this exciting new use of technology, it is necessary to first consider the physical science of invisibility, then review experiments attempting to render objects invisible, and finally have a better look, so to speak, at the tremendous potential impacts of this technology on our lives in the future.

1. Invisibility requires transporting light around an object.
   1. Fiction writers have depended on magical properties. •
      1. In Greek mythology, the Cyclops gave Hades an invisibility helmet to give him an advantage when battling the Titans.
      2. British science fiction writer H. G. Wells wrote of a magic elixir that one could drink to become invisible.
      3. J. K. Rowling imagined an invisibility cloak for Harry Potter.
   2. Rather than focusing on science fiction, researchers have focused on scientific principles.
   1. Visibility depends on light. In a personal interview on February 10, 2007, Professor Craig Rutan, physics chair at Santiago Canyon College, explained that in order to make something appear invisible, you must find a way to transport light around the object. For example, for the blackboard in this room to be visible, light must travel toward it. If something blocks that light, the board will become invisible. •
   2. This effect explains how you see a mirage on a hot summer road. In the November 2006 issue of Discover, Duke University physicists David Smith and Dave Schurig note that “when light rays from the sky hit the hot, thin air just above the surface of the asphalt, they bend. . . . Rays once headed from the sky to the ground are redirected to your eye, making the road shimmer like water. In effect, the mirage is cloaking the (now invisible) road behind an image of the blue sky.”

1. Invisibility research is progressing well. •
   1. Research began with microwaves.
   1. According to Senior Editor Josie Glausiusz in Discover, November 2006, the Duke physicists used microwaves instead of light waves because they have a “substantially longer wavelength, which makes the cloaking effect considerably easier to achieve.”
   2. The same source indicates that the physicists used specially created metamaterials, which “possess an ability, not found in nature, to bend light at extreme angles.” They placed rings of these materials around a small cylindrical object and were able to “bend microwaves to flow around the cylinder like water flowing around a pebble in a stream.” • [SHOW VISUAL AID OF THIS PROCESS]
   2. More recent trials have cloaked objects from visible light.
   1. An experiment led by Professor Xiang Zhang of the University of California, Berkeley, was reported in Nano Letters, May 27, 2011. The researchers used a “carpet cloak device made of silicon nitride.” [SHOW VISUAL AID OF CARPET CLOAK] • The authors concluded that this work “makes actual invisibility for the light seen by the human eye possible.”
   2. A team of scientists in the United Kingdom took a different approach. According to Gary Boas, contributing editor of Photonics Spectra, August 2012, “a space-time ‘event’ cloak . . . adds the dimension of time. While spatial cloaks divert light around an object, thus rendering the object invisible, the space-time cloak would slow down and speed up the illuminating photons to create a dark interval where events can take place undetected.”
   3. How long will it take until an invisibility cloak that can shield larger objects from sight becomes feasible? According to National Geographic News, November 20, 2008, Ulf Leonhardt, a visiting professor at the National University of Singapore, states that “it’s a question of the will and the money put into this field.”

1. Invisibility technology has many practical applications.
   1. First, an invisibility cloak can improve our visual environment. Ian Sample, science correspondent for the Guardian, wrote on March 18, 2010, that “some scientists believe cloaking materials could be used to hide unsightly buildings or high-security facilities.”
   2. Second, invisibility technology has medical benefits. George Soukoulis, a senior physicist at Ames Laboratory, explains in the January 9, 2007, Science Daily that metamaterials may lead to the development of a “superlens” that can capture “details much smaller than one wavelength of light to vastly improve imaging for materials or biomedical applications, such as giving researchers the power to see inside a human cell or diagnose disease in a baby still in the womb.” •
   3. Third, satellite connections may become more efficient. Jim Kerstetter, senior editor for CNET News, wrote an August 21, 2012, article on the CNET News site about Intellectual Ventures, a new company that has received funding from investors that include Bill Gates. The company has patented metamaterials technology that would eliminate the need for the heavy and expensive equipment planes now use to stay connected with satellites. The technology, about the size of a laptop, could even be used to create a “personal satellite hot spot.”
   4. Finally, invisibility research is being extended to shields that protect us from other types of waves. Adam Piore, contributing editor for Discover magazine, wrote in the July–August 2012 issue that scientists are now exploring the following: how sound waves might be cloaked to reduce noise pollution, how seismic waves could be cloaked to protect buildings, and how ocean waves could be deflected from ships.

1. First, I. we examined the science of invisibility. Second, we looked at current research into the process of making objects invisible. Finally, we looked at the tremendous impacts that this new technology could have on all of our lives. •
2. Now, you may not be able to run out tomorrow and purchase a cloak, but in the not-too-distant future, we will see benefits to diverse fields, including national defense, medicine, and communications. Furthermore, individuals like Susan Storm, with her Invisible Woman identity, may no longer just be comic book characters. •