Invisible Paper Clips? That's Nothing: I've Found the Missing Socks!

Science is not done in isolation. Some of the greatest discoveries have come on the backs of others. Such is the case with this invisible paper clip business. As a result, I now know where the missing socks are. They haven't dropped in a crack in the universe. They haven't been eaten by mice or stolen by nosy neighbors. No, those socks are invisible!

See, this Star Trek-type "cloaking device" has been around for awhile now, and scientists have been forced into the open about it because of a whistleblower-type campaign by certain media moguls who shall remain nameless. This calcite crystal and its amazing technicolor invisibility dream sequence business isn't news, really — we're only just now seeing it for what it's worth.

In case you missed it, scientists have been able to use calcite crystals to bounce light completely around a paper clip, making the paper clip "disappear" because to our naked eyes and instruments, it can't be "seen." The paper clip is still there, it just isn't visible — to us. This is an extension of work that scientists have done before. Not too long ago, they announced similar results with tiny particles — nowhere near the size of a paper clip. "Ho hum," we said then, "come back to us when you can encloak something as large as Harry Potter.

Well, they're almost there.

That's the key distinction. The whole light-bending exercise is just an entertainment exercise, playing with our definition of what it is real and unreal, seen and unseen. If we can't see something, then we conclude that it isn't there — or, more fully, that nothing is there. We know the paper clip was there because we saw it with our own eyes; yet now we don't see it, so we conclude that it isn't there, merely because we can't see it.

This has tremendous implications for the life, the universe, and everything outside our realm of understanding — aliens, black holes, genius politicians. We so badly want to see these things, but we don't. We go through our lives assuming that things that we can't see just aren't there.

Which brings me back to the socks. See, I'm off to the dryer now to give it a really good search, inside and out and behind and under and on top. I won't give up until I find those darned socks!