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Scientists are boldly going where only fiction has gone before — to develop a Cloak of Invisibility. It isn't quite ready to hide a Romulan space ship from Capt. James T. Kirk or to disguise Harry Potter, but it is a significant start and could show the way to more sophisticated designs.
科学家正大胆挺进以前只有在小说里才有描述的领域 ? 做一件隐身斗篷。当然这件斗篷还没完美到象电影里演的那样在詹姆斯?柯克舰长面前就让飞船隐形，或是让哈里.波特隐身。但它是个重要的开端，为更精密复杂的设计开辟道路。
In this first successful experiment, researchers from the United States and England were able to cloak a copper cylinder.
在这个首次成功的实验中，英美两国研究人员成功地将一块铜柱隐形。
It's like a mirage, where heat causes the bending of light rays and cloaks the road ahead behind an image of the sky.
实验就象海市蜃楼，在高温下，光线发生弯曲，从而前面的道路就看不见了，而只能看到后面的天空图象。
"We have built an artificial mirage that can hide something from would-be observers in any direction," said cloak designer David Schurig, a research associate in Duke University's electrical and computer engineering department.
“我们已经人工布置好了海市蜃楼的景象，在观察者面前，它能从各个角度将物体隐藏起来。”隐身斗篷的设计者，杜克大学电子和计算机工程部的副研究员大卫.史锐克说。
For their first attempt, the researchers designed a cloak that prevents microwaves from detecting objects. Like light and radar waves, microwaves usually bounce off objects, making them visible to instruments and creating a shadow that can be detected.
作为头一步，研究人员设计出能阻止微波探测到物体的斗篷。就象光波和雷达波一样，通常微波遇到物体就会反射回来，因此通过设备就能看到物体的成像，或是留下能被探测到的影子。
Cloaking used special materials to deflect radar or light or other waves around an object, like water flowing around a smooth rock in a stream. It differs from stealth technology, which does not make an aircraft invisible but reduces the cross-section available to radar, making it hard to track.
做这件斗篷的材料很特殊，能使包括雷达或光波在内的各种波遇到物体后发生偏转，就象溪流遇到光滑的石头那样。但它不同于隐形技术。隐形技术不是让飞机变得看不见，而只是减少能被雷达探测到的切面以使其难以被追踪到。
The new work points the way for an improved version that could hide people and objects from visible light.
这个新设计为一项改良理论指明了道路，证明在可见的光线中是能让人和物隐形的。
The cloaking of a cylinder from microwaves comes just five months after Schurig and colleagues published their theory that it should be possible. Their work is reported in a paper in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
在他们完成在微波中将铜柱隐形的实验之前的五个月，史锐克和他的同事发表了该隐形理论，并在周五出版的《科学》月刊上发表论文报告了他们的实验成果。
The cloak is made of metamaterials, which are mixtures of metal and circuit board materials such as ceramic, Teflon or fiber composite.
“魔法”斗篷是由变形材料制成。而这种变形材料是用包括陶瓷，特富龙和光纤化合物等金属和电路板材料做成的。
In an ideal situation, the cloak and the item it is hiding would be invisible. An observer would see whatever is beyond them, with no evidence the cloaked item exists.
在理想环境下，斗篷以及被它遮挡的物体将变得看不见。观察者只能看到它们后面的东西，一点也看不出被隐形物体存在的痕迹。
However, their device works only with microwave radiation and only in two dimensions. And it does not yet provide complete invisibility, producing a small shadow that can be detected.
但是，他们的设计还只能针对微波，并且只能在二维空间里实现。此外它也不能做到完全隐形，而是还留有一个能看得出来的影子。
1. cloak n. 斗篷 v. 用外衣遮蔽
2. invisibility 看不见的东西
3. sophisticated 精致复杂的
4. cylinder 圆柱体
5. mirage 海市蜃楼
6. detect 探测
7. bounce 使反弹
8. cloaking 外套料
9. deflect 使偏转
10. stealth 秘密行动
11. cross-section 截面
12. metamaterials变形材料
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发表于 2016-8-12 16:20:54