{"id":8350,"date":"2015-10-01T15:00:13","date_gmt":"2015-10-01T20:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=8350"},"modified":"2015-10-01T15:00:13","modified_gmt":"2015-10-01T20:00:13","slug":"crypsis-and-mimesis-the-future-of-camoflauge-and-cloaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2015\/10\/01\/crypsis-and-mimesis-the-future-of-camoflauge-and-cloaking\/","title":{"rendered":"Crypsis and Mimesis: The Future of Camoflauge and Cloaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tank\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“Berkeley Lab Researchers Create Ultrathin Invisibility Cloak.”<\/p>\n

So reads\u00a0a news release from the US Department of Energy’s venerated lab at the University of California, Berkeley. The cloak is too\u00a0small for even the tiniest of boy wizards\u00a0\u2014 it can\u00a0cover no more than a few human cells \u2014 but it’s a neat accomplishment. It is not, however, a sign that practical\u00a0invisibility cloaks are close to being a reality.<\/p>\n

There are basically two real-world approaches to camouflage: crypsis and mimesis. (Motion dazzle is\u00a0a third approach \u2014 think of the stripes on a zebra \u2014 but\u00a0no one can really\u00a0prove it works.)\u00a0Crypsis involves blending into the background and disappearing, like a ninja.\u00a0Mimesis, on the other hand, involves disguising an object to look like something else, like one of those Mission: Impossible<\/em> masks.<\/p>\n

In warfare, there are a fair number of legal restrictions to mimesis. For instance, you can’t paint your tank white with a big red cross on it and pretend it’s an ambulance that just so happens to have a gigantic gun. Other forms of mimesis are much better known, like the various countermeasures \u2014 chaff and flares \u2014 used by aircraft to distract hostile missiles.<\/p>\n

Chaff is made from little strips of metallic or metal-coated stuff that reflects radar waves being used to target an aircraft. Flares are basically like road flares; they burn at high temperatures, producing infrared (IR) signals that heat-seeking missiles are supposed to lock on to. Both chaff and flares represent a specific type of mimesis, but are distinct from each other in one particular way: Chaff is passive \u2014 it emits no signal of its own \u2014 while flares actively emit an IR signal.<\/p>\n

A great example of both mimesis and active camouflage is a system developed by BAE called ADAPTIV<\/a>, which\u00a0plasters a vehicle with tiny IR emitters that\u00a0put out signals making the\u00a0vehicle, like a tank, appear on enemy IR sensors to be something harmless, like an ambulance. They can also make the vehicle\u00a0appear to be whatever is behind it, like a field.<\/p>\n

Read the Remainder at Vice News<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Berkeley Lab Researchers Create Ultrathin Invisibility Cloak.” So reads\u00a0a news release from the US Department of Energy’s venerated lab at the University of California, Berkeley. The cloak is too\u00a0small for even the tiniest of boy wizards\u00a0\u2014 it can\u00a0cover no more than a few human cells \u2014 but it’s a neat accomplishment. It is not, however,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[74,65,10,1898],"tags":[2322,1973,2323,2324,2325,2326,2327,2328,2329,1699],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8350"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}