Invisibility Cloak

It seems that "bending light waves" is the way to go about making something invisible in a 3-dimensional plane. Earlier this month German scientists were able to successfully hide a bump on a piece of gold. They did it by stacking "photonic crystals" in a wood-pile-like manner, and bent light around the surface's blemish.

The study of using "metamaterials" to bend and control light is referred to as Transformation Optics. It is a relatively new field that has many speculating that cloaking large-scale objects will be a possibility in the years to come.

For now, this small achievement with the gold is a very promising step in the future of Transformation Optics. This is an up-and-coming technology that has endless uses. Imagine being able to hide unsightly off-shore windmills, or being able to cloak special operations forces.