The trailer for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince debuted on the Internet a couple weeks ago and created some buzz unsurprisingly, and you can bet that as the movie nears its November 21st release date that the Internet buzz will be at full capacity.
Something indirectly Harry Potter-related, however that is far more buzz-worthy than any movie (if it comes to fruition) is the “invisibility cloak” made popular by the Harry Potter franchise, that scientists are saying they are getting closer to realizing. BBC News reports:
The materials do not occur naturally but have been created on a nano scale, measured in billionths of a metre.
The team says the principles could one day be scaled up to make invisibility cloaks large enough to hide people.
Yes. The power to make yourself virtually invisible.
This reminds me of something Dr. Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park. He talked about how scientists got so caught up in whether or not they could bring dinosaurs to life, they didn’t stop to think if they should. Of course the plot of the movie determined that in fact they shouldn’t have.
Yes, we all want an invisibility cloak, but what happens when they fall into the wrong hands? Supervillains? I’m sure murderers, rapists, and thieves would love to get their hands on one of these.
By the way, Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park has also written a novel on threats of nano-technology to the human race. It’s stories like this that make him seem almost prophetic rather than just another science fiction author.
This real-life technology story, will surely not get the Digg love that future Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince stories will, however. Don’t get me wrong, there are a fair amount of diggs on the subject currently, but let’s see what the score is come November.
