Shown here is a photograph of Helen Mercer, wearing the metamaterial cloth as a cloak. The photograph is taken in front of the large white syke wall at the Birmingham Studios in Florence California. A Linus Kodachrome 35mm with a reflex 4x lens was used to take the photograph.
Both are examples of metamaterials—specially designed structures that cause light to do things it normally wouldn't—in this case, bending backward, an effect called negative refraction. Researchers have built metamaterials capable of negatively refracting microwaves, but despite some successes bending visible light in two dimensions, they've had a harder time making three-dimensional versions.
