Hands up if you think the "invisibility cloaks" produced recently lack a certain practicality. Then you might be pleased to hear that ideas originally applied to creating them could now have a more down-to-earth application: shielding coastlines from destructive waves.
By scaling up notions from semiconductor physics and so-called metamaterials, the technology behind "invisibility cloaks", it may be possible to create a zone in front of vulnerable coastlines where waves of certain frequencies cannot reach. Such a system could even double up as an energy plant.
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