Harry Potter's Invisibility Cloak Could Become A Reality

If you were given an invisibility cloak, what would you do with it? Harry Potter definitely wore the piece well as he used it to camouflage himself when he snuck off to Hogsmeade Village or hid from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. While the real world is still a few wand flicks away from having a fully functioning invisibility cloak, researchers at London's Queen Mary University are doing their very best to bring its cloaking tech to life.

The university's School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science have partnered with U.K. industry heads to produce a cloaking device which, "uses graded refractive index nanocomposite materials to reduce an object's electromagnetic signature, making it appear flat."

Whew, that was a lot of big words. In short, it looks like the tech will function by bending light waves around an object to prevent anyone looking at the structure from seeing it at any frequency. In a statement released last Friday, the university said that their experimental coating aims, "to 'cloak' the object: such a structure can hide an object that would ordinarily have caused the wave to be scattered."

In Harry Potter, fans know little about how the boy wizard's invisibility cloak funtions aside from the explanation of, "Hey, it's magic!" Harry came upon the block as he inherited it as a hand-me-down from his father's family. In fact, the cloak was first created by Ignotus Peverell, a 13th-century wizard who used the robe to hide from Death itself following a surly run-in between them. While other invisibility cloaks also exist within the magical universe, Harry's is definitely more powerful given its curious origin, and the cloak also stands as one of the franchise's Deathly Hallows.

Much like how Star Wars fans await the day that a real-life lightsaber is made, Harry Potter fans are interested to see whether the series' fabled invisibility cloak can really be woven into existence.

What are your thoughts? Do you think someone would be interested in making the cloak should the technology exist?