The Gryffindor Gazette

Invisibility cloak? Impossible, says physicist

by Wendy on April 1st, 2008

According to Michio Kaku, a physicist specializing in string theory at the City College of New York, Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak is nice in theory but impossible to duplicate in real life. Well, at least for now. Here’s what he has to say:

….an invisibility shield is potentially possible, and Kaku explains how, but since it can’t be seen through from the inside, eyeholes would be needed. Perhaps disembodied floating eyes would be less inconspicuous than a whole visible person. But then again, one could listen, or even mind-read. While we might someday be able to read the vague tenor of another’s thoughts, Kaku says, the details may be forever inaccessible.

And though it may not spark any story ideas, there is a certain grim satisfaction to finding out that to make Harry Potter invisible without a special shield “one would have to liquefy him, boil him to create steam, crystallize him, heat him again, and then cool him.” Take that, boy wizard. - source

I could care less if it’s possible or not, honestly - it just makes good reading! But I don’t think that this technology will be out of our reach for too much longer, do you?

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