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Electromagnetic radiation (light, ultraviolet, radio waves, microwaves, etc) acts as both a particle and as a wave.  Either way, they're saying that they can channel this radiation around objects.

Tiny objects right now, and imperfectly.  If you read the article, right now they can only do microwaves - which are used for radars.

So it's a start.  They expect to be able to cloak a tank in a few years.  No radar hits it, no light hits it... radiation simply goes around it!  That's awesome!

Oatmeal wrote:

There's no ozone layer to protect you when you're in a ship or on the surface of Mars

The ozone layer only protects you against UV radiation, which only is harmful to bare skin. You're thinking of the magnetic field (mars has a very weak one). That protects us from a good deal of cosmic radiation.

Still, there's no earth's electromagnetic field to protect you in space.

mo' ron wrote:

Spaceman wrote:

I could be wrong (should really make that my sig), but I think only gamma radiation is electromagnetic, and what we think of as "radiation", the stuff Geiger counters go all beepy over (technical term) includes alpha and beta radiation, which are particles, which it doesn't affect.

Also invisibility is way cooler and should be what we focus all our energies on.

You are 100% way wrong.

All radiation/light is radiation of EM waves, there's just a phenomena called wave-particle duality when EM radiation can be modeled like a particle AND a wave, depending on the situation.

He's partially right.  radioactive decay produces light (gamma and x rays) and particles (alpha radiation which is a He nucleus, beta radiation which is an electron, and a bunch of other stuff).  Geiger counters can detect alpha and beta radiation, which is not a form of light.  They can less reliably detect gamma radiation.

Spaceman wrote:

I could be wrong (should really make that my sig), but I think only gamma radiation is electromagnetic, and what we think of as "radiation", the stuff Geiger counters go all beepy over (technical term) includes alpha and beta radiation, which are particles, which it doesn't affect.

True, but the other kinds (Alpha and Beta) are charged particles, which means they can be steered using powerful magnetic fields. So, though I also may be wrong, I think it's the gamma and not the other radiation that poses the biggest threat to manned space flight.

Spaceman wrote:

Also invisibility is way cooler and should be what we focus all our energies on.

I guess we know now where you stand on the eternal question of superpowers posed by John Hodgman. I, personally, would pick flight over invisibility.

It is not a true forcefield. It is an RPG interception system that detect threats and basically hits them with a shotgun like blast before they can get close enough to cause damage. The Isrealis developed it and have been using it for a while. The DOD likes it but the US army doesn't want to dependent on foreign technology especially when we've got technology being developed for similar purposes even though it'll be years before its ready.

Call me when they have  warp drives i am going to be the first outa this  madhouse

Switcher wrote:

Call me when they have  warp drives i am going to be the first outa this  madhouse

They must develop inertial dampers first.

ctachme wrote:

DudetheCreator wrote:

Sounds pretty delicate right now, but maybe it'll eventually find a use in defense systems.  Not much good for fighting aliens though.

Unless they come from a star similar to ours and see in the same spectrum that we do, and thus we would be invisible to them.

Which come to think about it, isn't all that improbable, given that our star is pretty average.

Most of the stars put out most of their energy in the visible specturm.

Well, to produce an EM field, all you really need to have is light, and wouldn't do much against fast-moving charged particles. Now a magnetic field might do something for you.

There are a few issues that I'm wondering about this that aren't answered, such as if it can work with any shape (since I'm assuming that this isn't just some magical field, it's actually coated with this material) and, if you're inside a tank, how you can manage to bend all the light around you... and still see where you're going.

resedit wrote:

I'll be impressed when they figure out how to turn water into wine.

Party pooper.

oatmeal wrote:

DudetheCreator wrote:

Not much good for fighting aliens though.

Naah.  How could you deploy it across the entire border?

We'd apply it to that crazy wall we're building that's so hueg liek xbox so that when the aliens try to scale it, they don't know how far to throw their grapplers. And will miss. Frequently.