Published: March 08, 2007 12:25 pm            

The science of invisibility

• Physicist speaks at OSU about bending light

The state creativity think tank, The DaVinci Institute, comprised of state higher education leaders, welcomes renowned physicist Sir John Pendry, professor and chair of theoretical solid state physics at Imperial College, London, to give demonstration of his concept of making things, and possibly people, appear invisible.

Pendry has created “meta-materials” which allow light to be bent around an object, rather than reflecting or refracted. Pendry used an example to explain his theory to the BBC in a 2006 interview.

“If you put a pencil in water that’s moving, the water naturally flows around the pencil. When it gets to the other side, the water closes up,” said Pendry in the interview, according to a release from Oklahoma State University. “Light doesn’t do that of course, it hits the pencil and scatters. So you want to put a coating around the pencil that allows light to flow around it in a nice, curved way.”

Pendry and his idea received international recognition last fall when he and a team of Duke University researchers demonstrated the ability to bend light, said Peter Sherwood, dean of OSU’s College of Arts and Sciences and president of the DaVinci Institute. Sherwood is excited that Pendry is coming to OSU and hopes to fill up the 600 seats reserved in the ConocoPhillips Alumni Center.

The presentation is Friday at 7 p.m., and is free and open to the public.

“I think we should have many people from Stillwater come” after Pendry received such recognition in the national media, such as publications from Science, National Geographic, The New York Times and Popular Mechanics, said Sherwood.

He is hoping the lecture will ignite excitement about science and what it can mean.

“We can use science to make things look invisible,” Sherwood said.

The future will undoubtedly be different with all the technological advances, which is what the DaVinci Institute is all about.

“We need to be able to expand our thinking,” Sherwood said. “I think it is very exciting to be saying what will Oklahoma be like in 100 years.”

        

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