Yes, There is a Fractal Invisibility Cloak
A serendipitous discovery by radio astronomer Nathan Cohen led to a new class of metamaterials
“The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.”
— Steven Weinberg (1933–2021)
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I remember Nathan Cohen speaking at the Yale memorial service for Benoit Mandelbrot. He was talking about a serendipitous discovery of his which happened soon after starting his first full-time job teaching at Boston University. Six months before starting the job, he had met Mandelbrot at conference in Hungary where Mandelbrot was presenting some of his recently published work on fractals.
Cohen’s discovery was a clear case of necessity being the mother of invention. In those days, although cable companies were offering service in most populous locations, many people still depended on broadcast signals for their television programming. The antennas were large and unsightly. Perhaps this was why his landlord had a “no antennas” policy.
