Comments on: How Not to be Seen

By: MacAvity

MacAvity — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 20:13:35 +0000

I’m not sure how many of you have actually read H. G. Wells’s book, but it actually contains some halfway decent science regarding invisibility, admittedly sacrificing science once in a while for dramatic effect. The man explains that anything pure white is in fact colorless, but reflects or refracts light differently than air. In the story, he discovers a way to realign the molecules of any colorless substance to change said substance’s reflective and refractive properties to match air, thereby making it invisible. A human being is not colorless, but the invisible man happened to have been an albino before he turned himself invisible, so the only pigment in his body was the hemoglobin in his blood. Being the brilliant fictional scientist that he was, he also found a way to modify his own hemoglobin to make it colorless. His eyes, as Sarge pointed out would be necessary, remained slightly but not noticeably visible, allowing him to see. When he ate, food remained visible in his innards only until it was completely digested, the body breaking down the visible molecules and assimilating them into its own invisible state.

The real flaws in Wells’s depiction of the Invisible Man are less nit-picky and more cringe-worthy. When he bleeds, his blood becomes visible. When he dies, his whole body becomes visible. There is no scientific reason whatsoever for this. It is purely for dramatic effect. Despicable.

By: tednugentkicksass

tednugentkicksass — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 02:52:20 +0000

^^^
Tink, I don’t know if you’re still floating about the site but thank you for getting the answer straight from the horses mouth. Not only did you get my question answered, but my interweb alias is now involved in the #1 result on google for the query on “unambergrised” …. pretty freaking sweet.

On a side note, isn’t Stephen R. Donaldson cool? I mean seriously, what a badass.

By: Mirage_GSM

Mirage_GSM — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 10:55:33 +0000

[quote]tednugentkicksass said: “Thanks radiatidon, that really is a sweet link. In fact, it’s the site that drew me nigh on to apoplexy. I found it in my initial searches and it told me everything but what I wanted to know– how else would I have found out what “roynish” meant? I thought S.R.D. just created that word.
Number one on my list: “unambergrised: that which is bereft of it’s quintessential essence”
It has a sort of poetic flair to it, don’t you think?”[/quote]
It seems the site has since been updated. It does now contain a definition of “unambergrised” as intended by the author:
[quote]unambergrised – adjective – not covered in whale intestine secretion (N.B. perhaps also, from its use in perfumes, “unperfumed” or, to quote Stephen R. Donaldson himself describing his use of the word: “But ‘unambergrised’. A great word, which (if memory serves) I stole from Gerard Manley Hopkins. Think of it like this. Long ago, ambergris (noun) was sometimes used to prepare bodies for funerals; more literally, to counteract the stink of an unburied body until an appropriate funeral (a show of respect and love) could be arranged. Inventing a verb from the noun, ‘to ambergris’ denotes ‘to prepare a body for a funeral.’ By implication, therefore, the verb connotes treating something deceased or lost with love and respect. From there, it isn’t hard to invent an adjective from the verb: e.g. ‘Men wept over her ambergrised corpse.’ And from *there*, it’s a small step to the adjective ‘unambergrised,’ which means–drumroll, please–the opposite of ‘ambergrised’. Which in turn brings us, through a series of connotations, to the unintended accuracy of asking, ‘What the hell does “unambergrised” mean?’–’hell’ having suddenly become appropriate to the discussion (via ‘treating something deceased or lost with contempt and/or disregard’). (I hear carping in the background, but I choose to ignore it. )”; also worthy of note is that the O.E.D. includes only ambergris, with none of the funerary connections)[/quote]

By: allduerespect88

allduerespect88 — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 07:39:41 +0000

[quote]Pale said: “If I hide under the bed, in most cases I’m invisible to people who enter the room. And it’s much cheaper than high-tech cloaks too!”[/quote]

It turns out Pale does have a sense of humour. An excellent one at that.

By: fatal retreat

fatal retreat — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 06:30:55 +0000

so what happens when they perfect this technology, and we all start wearing invisible cloaks?
imagine walking on deserted roads, trying not to bump into someone…

By: Amin Najmeddini

Amin Najmeddini — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 14:25:10 +0000

It’s a good idea to make something/body invisible, but not the onle way. Because it needs huge instruments to make e.g. an airplane invisible. I have another idea: Isn’t it better to make a coat or cover to wear an object we want to hide it, then that cover shows behind of the object to who is seeing it from opposite? It’s possible and so easier than this method. What’s your idea?

By: rob5435

rob5435 — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:28:06 +0000

From my understanding your idea would work for the most part in an open area but with something behind you would be distorted. Thats just my view i dont completely grasp the concept of this, unless its in a completely open area i dont see how an invisibility cloak would work period, or as the article said if you remain completely still.

By: MonkeyBones

MonkeyBones — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:44:34 +0000

Hi, this is my first post on DI, allthough I enjoyed reading the articles and comments for awhile. Please excuse my bad english, its not my first language ;).

I had an idea for a cloaking cloth composed of millions of semi-spherical devices the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Each possible radii path of these semi spheres would hold a pair of fiber optic filaments that would each have attached at their inner end a transmitter and a receiver transmitting a low amplitude carrier wave signal of the light information received by the fiber optic in a directional manner , so that any other semi-sphere having a fiber optic on one of its radiuses with a receiver that is inline with the original light transmission would then transmit the light via its own fiber optic radius, making what is between "transparent" . This would cover the 360 degree field of view problem, although a varying degree of halo would surround the object depending on the size of the semi spheres.