“Cloak of Silence”
Please try for a short moment to imagine the following situation: it’s Saturday morning, you’re finally allowed to sleep for as long as you want to. However… at 8:30 a.m. the people living one floor below yours start doing their piano lessons. The noise wakes up the baby in the apartment next door and he begins at once to cry at the top of his voice. This in turn leads to the neighbours above pounding on the floor and finally turning up the volume of their TV to the highest setting. Through all this ruckus, you are tossing and turning in bed, desperately trying to find a way to make your ear plugs fit even tighter.
I admit, not even I in my noise-plagued little apartment have experienced such a situation (yet). However, as you might have read a few days ago, I sometimes long for a little more silence.
Now there is hope: scientists in Spain have discovered the theoretical basis for an invention that would make not just me very happy but also lots of other people suffering from city centre street noise, presumably. Apart from this, of course, there are countless other possible applicabilities. – These scientists have found, in theory at least, a way to shield an object from sound waves by covering it with so called “sonic crystals”. These crystals are expected to be able to deflect sound waves. Using such a material in the walls of my apartment would finally get me my much-desired haven of tranquillity. =)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7450321.stm
I am always delighted to hear of such SciFi-become-reality stories (there was also some talk about a functioning mechanical exoskeleton which can be used to lift heavy loads), as I am a huge fan of science fiction and the possibilities it describes. The article mentioned above also mentions the search for a way to break light waves – so some time in the not too distant future, there might be cloak of invisibility after the “cloak of silence”.
