London: A physicist who pioneered the idea of an “invisibility cloak” has been awarded the Isaac Newton Medal, the highest honour bestowed by the UK’s Institute of Physics.
Professor Sir John Pendry made use of metamaterials - artificial materials with properties built in that may not be found in nature - to guide light around an object, making it effectively invisible.
The eye is tricked into thinking an item is not there as the “cloak” bends light away as it reflects from the source. But Prof Sir John, of Imperial College London, said children should not get too excited about it yet.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The point of the cloak was a grand challenge to tell the world ‘if we can do that, we can do anything.’–Telegraph