Overview
Description:
"Exploring Nano & Society - Invisibility Cloak" is a hands-on activity in which visitors learn about refraction and how it can be used to make a glass stir rod "disappear" in a cup of baby oil. They also learn how nano researchers are trying to make invisibility cloaks by manipulating the refraction of light. Conversation around this possible new technology leads visitors to explore how technologies and society influence each other.
Checklist
Scientist reviewed?
Peer reviewed?
Visitor evaluation?
Permissions
Creative Commons
Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike
Standards
Physical science:
K-4: Properties of objects and materials
5-8: Properties and changes of properties in matter
9-12: Structure and properties of matter
Resources
Evaluations
This product does not have any linked evaluations.
Superabsorbent polymers also can be invisible
We've had a lot of fun letting visitors put their hands into apparently empty beakers of water only to find they're half full of lumps of superabsorbent polymer "crystals".
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/1283
Some of our volunteers call them "ghost brains", because you can't see them, and they're squishy and gross.
Density column
One variant of this activity is to put both liquids in the same container instead of separate containers. The oil will float on top of the water, so you can have objects half in water and half in oil, half visible and half invisible.
When doing this, transferring objects into oil from water can spoil the illusion. Water sticking to the surface of the object can make it visible.
You can extend the density column idea with activities like Density Rainbow:
http://www.omsi.edu/sites/all/FTP/files/chemistry/NH-PDF/NH-A11-DensityR...