KIT Researchers Protect the Princess from the Pea

In the past years, invisibility cloaks were developed for various senses. Objects can be hidden from light, heat or sound. However, hiding of an object from being touched still remained to be accomplished. KIT scientists have now succeeded in creating a volume in which an object can be hidden from touching similar to a pea under the mattress of a princess.

So in recent years we have invented and produced meta-materials that can bend light in certain wavelengths and "cloak" objects. Now there is a new meta-material that can cloak the sense of touch. This is so far advanced that they are still figuring out practical applications for this. One thing they mentioned is very thin camping mattresses. I'm an ultra-light backpacker/camper and this would be awesome for my needs.
Elastic Invisibility Cloak Allows to Hide from Touching / Mechanical Meta-material Can Be Produced in Millimeter Size

[url=http://www.kit.edu/kit/english/pi_2014_15296.php]

a reply to: Kratos40

Wow, that stuff is really soft.

a reply to: intrptr

It's interesting that it also gives a feedback that tells your nerves/senses...there's nothing there. I'm still trying to grasp my brain around this new crystalline structure.

ETA: Anyone have any ideas for such an invention? I'm trying to think about medical applications here for people who are in chronic pain.

originally posted by: Kratos40
a reply to: intrptr

It's interesting that it also gives a feedback that tells your nerves/senses...there's nothing there. I'm still trying to grasp my brain around this new crystalline structure.

ETA: Anyone have any ideas for such an invention? I'm trying to think about medical applications here for people who are in chronic pain.

First, great article S&F

Second: Yes I could see it having a use for people who are in chronic pain, not sure how they would do that but I could see it as being helpful.

I agree with the article when it says "Examples are very thin, light, and still comfortable camping mattresses or carpets hiding cables and pipelines below." It doesn't even have to a camping mattress, it could be a regular mattress.

It will also be useful if they combine it with the other invisibility cloaks & it would work for military purposes

a reply to: knoledgeispower

Well of course, the military always has a purpose to used such things. Medical and otherwise humanitarian uses come second to nefarious uses.

Thank you for the input.

One thing I was thinking about is for bed-ridden patients. But (no pun intented), is that their sores come about because of blood pooling at the lowest point of the body and creating acidic conditions to create ulcers. So this technology may not apply.

originally posted by: Kratos40
a reply to: intrptr

ETA: Anyone have any ideas for such an invention? I'm trying to think about medical applications here for people who are in chronic pain.

Really cool invention, thanks for posting about it!

It sounds like it would go over big with runners in insoles for running shoes. Other uses might include:

Boxing and martial arts gloves & protective pads
Wrestling, martial arts, and gymnastic mats
Packing materials for shipping fragile items
Chair cushions
Pillows

originally posted by: ikonoklast

originally posted by: Kratos40
a reply to: intrptr

ETA: Anyone have any ideas for such an invention? I'm trying to think about medical applications here for people who are in chronic pain.

Really cool invention, thanks for posting about it!

It sounds like it would go over big with runners in insoles for running shoes. Other uses might include:

Boxing and martial arts gloves & protective pads
Wrestling, martial arts, and gymnastic mats
Packing materials for shipping fragile items
Chair cushions
Pillows

LOL! I think it will defeat the purpose of inflicting pain on your opponent in any of those sports/activities. Packing materials are not sentient and don't really feel anything.
I do like your idea of REALLY high-tech insoles for running shoes. I guess my next pair of running shoes will cost around $1000 U.S. dollars (New Balance). Anything Micheal Jordan or Lebron will be twice as much.

If they put it in running shoes, I'd be able to run. My arthritis makes running too painful as each step sends jolts up my spine. Same reason why I can't wear any footwear unless it has a thick bottom to cushion my steps

originally posted by: knoledgeispower
If they put it in running shoes, I'd be able to run. My arthritis makes running too painful as each step sends jolts up my spine. Same reason why I can't wear any footwear unless it has a thick bottom to cushion my steps

If it is possible to coat it with a material that the body will not reject. Then we can insert a sheath of this in between your joints. You would'nt feel a thing.

ETA: After some thought, it might not work. The added anti-rejection material will probably interfere with the meta-material properties.

I'm pretty sure that you could still feel the actual material, just not whatever is UNDER the material. Maybe everyone already understands that, but that's not the feeling I get from the replies on this thread.

The material's lattice structure deforms in such a way that there is no tactile feedback beyond the flat surface of the material.

I suppose it would be similar to memory foam, but the novelty is that this material is magnitudes thinner.

a reply to: LuXiferGriM

That is what I was thinking when I was thinking about an ultra-light, ultra-thin mattress that I can take with me anywhere on hiking/camping trip.

It would be bad if you had a pet or child hiding underneath and you just slept over them. Suffocating them. It sounds grim, but it could happen.

a reply to: Kratos40

I like the idea of sleeping mats, considering they could bring it to market at a reasonable price. If not, I've been known to sleep in uncomfortable places...

If you put a thin mattress made of this on the ice of a frozen lake, could you sleep on it without feeling the cold of the ice?

Then you've got your standard gloves, wet suit, sled, sleeping on thorns, wrestling mats, and walking on lava.

originally posted by: Kratos40
Packing materials are not sentient and don't really feel anything.

I'm not sure why sentience would be required. It sounds like the meta-material structure redirects pressure around an object inside it. If that is correct, it would shield the object inside from the effects of outside pressure just as much as it shields an object inside from being felt by applying pressure on the outside.

I remember arguing with my physics professor back in college when discussing Newton's 3rd law of motion (For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction). I wasn't arguing about the law, I was arguing about an example the professor used. He was explaining it with an example of weight as a force. He said that when you stand on the floor with x pounds of force (from your weight), the floor exerts an equal and opposite force back on you.

I said something like, "The floor is not exerting force, it's just laying there." He couldn't really explain how the floor exerted force, and finally fell back on, "You're just going to have to take my word on it." Only later did I understand that your body weight must be deforming the material of the floor (on however a microscopic level) and the material of the floor must be resisting that deformation and 'pushing back.'

In the same way, when you squeeze in on the outside of something inside packing material, there is an equal and opposite push back. I think the only way you could feel something inside it is if the compressibility across the surface (and the resulting force back) is not uniform. This meta-material appears to work by 'spreading out' the force so that it minimizes such differences across the surface area. Based on Newton's 3rd law of motion, I would expect that would have to be a 2-way thing just like the floor example.

But maybe I am misunderstanding how this meta-material works...

a reply to: ikonoklast

The following quote from the article might help convey your explanation:

We build the structure around the object to be hidden. In this structure, strength depends on the location in a defined way,” explains Tiemo Bückmann, KIT, the first author of the article. “The precision of the components combined with the size of the complete arrangement was one of the big obstacles to the development of the mechanical invisibility cloak.” The metamaterial is a crystalline material structured with sub-micrometer accuracy. It consists of needle-shaped cones, whose tips meet. The size of the contact points is calculated precisely to reach the mechanical properties desired. In this way, a structure results, through which a finger or a measurement instrument cannot feel its way.

Sounds like the meta-material is custom made to disperse the opposite forces away from the point of touch. So like your example of the floor pushing back on the force/weight of the person, it instead spreads it out.