Physicists working on materials that offer 'acoustic invisibility'

The picture above is an illustration of a concept that some physicists from Duke University have been working on. This is the general idea behind their work: what if you get a material to redirect sound waves around a material? Not much unlike bending light around objects for a 'standard' invisibility cloak, these scientists believe it is possible to develop a special shell, cloak or case, that will make an object's sound signature completely undetectable.

Steven A. Cummer -- a friendly neighborhood scientist guy working out of Duke University -- said: "For a year I've been chipping away at this, deriving the properties of the shell we [would] need." After drinking a beverage he continued on: "In our latest work we've been able to show that there is a set of material properties that would do exactly to sound waves what that invisibility cloak does to electromagnetic waves," he apparently said, according to National Geographic News.

A potential 'acoustic invisibility' cloak would make any object inside seem "as if nothing had been there at all," dreamily ruminated Steven Cummer of Duke University, as he stared off into space.

Details of the materials and compounds being worked on were not available, but the project will be looked at in depth in the January edition of Physical Review Letters.

This new silent science could possibly by applied to fantastic new war technology, such as submarine design, or for funky concert hall technology, such as making a bothersome beam or pillar less aurally obtrusive.