Beyond Science Fiction: The Physics of Invisibility
Sir John Pendry
Thursday, 20 Oct 2016 at 8:00 pm – Benton Auditorium, Scheman Building, Iowa State Center
Sir John Pendry, the physicist who proposed the idea of an "invisibility cloak," is a professor of theoretical solid state physics at Imperial College London. Pendry has made seminal contributions to surface science, disordered systems and photonics, but his work on cloaking and metamaterials is arguably his most famous and potentially transformative. His concept for an "invisibility cloak" uses metamaterials - whose properties are not defined by their chemical makeup but rather by their structure on the tiniest scales - to bend light in such a way that it can form a container around an object and effectively make it invisible. Pendry is a recipient of such distinguished awards as the Newton Medal, Descartes Prize, and the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience. The 2016 Zaffarano Lecture in PhysicsCosponsored By:
- Physics & Astronomy
- Zaffarano Endowed Lecture Fund
- Committee on Lectures (funded by Student Government)
Stay for the entire event, including the brief question-and-answer session that follows the formal presentation. Most events run 75 minutes.
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