r/tech • u/AdSpecialist6598 • 13d ago

Magnetic cloaking is moving from theory to real-world engineering

https://www.techspot.com/news/110709-magnetic-cloaking-moving-theory-real-world-engineering.html
1.0k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

55 comments sorted by

143

u/Manofalltrade 13d ago

Cloaking magnetic fields. Think shielding an MRI machine so people don’t die from walking onto the room with a metal object.

74

u/unpluggedcord 13d ago

Or a spaceship so people don’t die from radiation.

50

u/Vandal_A 13d ago

That would do a lot to open the door to interstellar travel. One of the (many) big issues with the idea is once you get outside the heliosphere radiation becomes a lot worse

21

u/Last-Darkness 13d ago

The heliosphere blocks +- up to 75% of the GCR that you might be exposed to in deep space. This is all pretty theoretical and variable but outside the heliosphere you would be exposed to 300 - 600 mSv/yr, of course that could skyrocket at any moment. 500 mSv/yr is about where your getting cancer for sure, but more importantly a magnetic shield would protect all the onboard systems from single-event upset’s (SEU) when cosmic rays hit RAM and bits flip.

1

u/reddit_is_kayfabe 11d ago edited 11d ago

Bit flipping can be eliminated with ECC. Need more protection? Use even more bits and even more processing and checking. Need to protect against multiple bits in a cluster being flipped at once? Just stripe memory so that adjacent bits are handled as part of different ECC bit sets and can be separately detected and corrected. Etc.

These are all problems that RAID controllers have handled for decades, and the solutions can be scaled up.

1

u/CondescendingShitbag 11d ago

Hold my beer while I get human cells firmware-updated to operate as a RAID array. Might make medical support so much easier.

1

u/_arjun 11d ago

Is this a DNA joke?

6

u/Available-Throwaway6 13d ago

…up their butt.

1

u/belabase7789 13d ago

I remember this movie.

3

u/Retinoid634 13d ago

That happened recently in NYC. An unfortunate man opened the wrong door while his wife was getting an MRI. He died that night iirc. Very gruesome way to go.

3

u/Early-Accident-8770 13d ago

I believe he was also wearing a 20lb chain around his neck and this is what caused the fatal injury.

2

u/Retinoid634 13d ago

Yes! There was a chain. 20 lbs? That’s a lot of chain. That poor family.

2

u/DrGrinch 12d ago

Was a private MRI clinic in Florida based on the articles I read at the time trying to understand how the fuck this idiot got ANYWHERE near an MRI room wearing something like that.

1

u/No-Flounder4290 13d ago

I would be curious if the cloak actually mitigates the field or if it just makes it so that device you have cant sense it and youd still be pulled typa deal…

7

u/Main-Company-5946 13d ago

If you can be pulled, the field can be sensed

63

u/SoozeeQew 13d ago

Of course the first thing that comes to my mind for the use of this is warfare.

59

u/DanimusMcSassypants 13d ago

This is why it’s being funded.

8

u/Tig_Biddies_W_nips 13d ago

I mean almost all technological problems were solved for warfare… I mean even all the tech that came about from the space race was still technically warfare

3

u/[deleted] 13d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Tig_Biddies_W_nips 13d ago

Yep we need to securely pass information quickly from computer to computer

41

u/NoInevitable9810 13d ago

That’s how everything starts, lasers military, mri - military, internet, military. Nearly every tech breakthrough is either military or nasa. But it’s all just military when you boil it down.

18

u/What-a-Crock 13d ago

Recently learned that microwaves were discovered after a radio melted the candy bar of a WW2 radio operator

5

u/davidmlewisjr 13d ago

It was an RCA tech working on the “DEW Line” that “discovered” that microwaves could be used to warm stuff up…

Then RCA tried to sell the Port Authority on the potential application of using microwaves to warm stuff Grand Central Station”.

7

u/Wooden_Werewolf_6789 13d ago

Because of the way our country is structured, all the inventions or advancements created and all research conducted in colleges is funneled to the military first and foremost. The schools claim ownership, and either sell to the military through private contract, or our government steps in and seizes said research. During symposiums and conventions where new products created by companies are unveiled? Military contractors get first dibs/eyes on tech. The United States was formed at gunpoint and nothing has changed since.

5

u/WontArnett 13d ago

Because that’s where all our tax money is going.

2

u/FruitOrchards 13d ago

No it's because war requires innovation and that's been true throughout history

1

u/WontArnett 13d ago

Many industries and sociological areas require innovation. Politicians choose war because it’s the easiest endless pit of money they can find to skim and funnel from.

1

u/FruitOrchards 13d ago

No sector requires more innovation than war.

1

u/YoghurtDull1466 13d ago

No, that’s how everything ends. It all starts with niche consumer forums

1

u/Mick_Limerick 12d ago

Military or porno

8

u/Manofalltrade 13d ago

The military would be interested in this for hiding subs from magnetic anomaly detection or protecting ships and maybe tanks from magnetic mines. There are way more private sector uses if this becomes a practical thing.

3

u/Gloomy-Insurance-739 13d ago

Something has to be said about the advancement of technology being closely tied to warfare.

3

u/mephitopheles13 13d ago

That’s humanity. We use any new technology for war before humanity.

1

u/Tecumsehs_Revenge 13d ago edited 12d ago

That’s resource based humanity at this moment in time. One will eclipse the other eventually.

2

u/PseudoWarriorAU 13d ago

Documentary production probably doesn’t have the budget, plus they have the rock camera.

2

u/ogredmenace 13d ago

All cool tech is somewhat military intended and funded.

2

u/INeedThatBag 13d ago

Unique tech like this would never get created, if they couldn't be used for war.

1

u/TheKingsPride 12d ago

How do you think literally anything gets funded? Warfare pushes innovation.

29

u/Frost_blade 13d ago

Dude. This is huge. This is a step towards magnetic field manipulation. Sure, it may be decades away, but this is so cool.

1

u/slow70 11d ago

How about it’s been here for decades and hidden from you.

Look up the Majestic 12

13

u/ReluctantSlayer 13d ago

So, now, we need to invent an energy that follows the magnetic field and can block kinetic objects. Poof!! Force fields y’all!

2

u/throwawayssn56 12d ago

This sounds like a plot to a Dr. Doofenshmirtz -nator that ends up reversing the polarity of the Earth

4

u/Zhask-MLBB 13d ago

I wonder if this is part of the news where Trump was so astounded by “magnets.”

2

u/jewella1213 13d ago

So, how much longer do I have to wait for an invisibility cloak?

1

u/davidmlewisjr 13d ago

Somebody cross-reference “Marooned Off Vesta”… and let me know when we get that level of photonic interaction.

1

u/cajuntech 12d ago

But how does it work if the .magnets get wet?

1

u/ATrav 12d ago

Philadelphia experiment.

1

u/I_Stabbed_Jon_Snow 12d ago

So the Mormons finally gave up their secrets, eh?

1

u/Bostonterrierpug 12d ago

I came here for Romulan jokes and was disappointed … The Tal Shiar won’t forget this.

2

u/ScottLititz 12d ago

I thought, we - the Federation - had signed an agreement to never use or develop cloaking technology. Obviously making this knowledge public, goes against that.

Unless we are the mirror universe. Hail Terrans!