To better understand the environment, that produces things such as Duke University's baseless claims of having an invisibility cloak, one needs to learn about the current state of the academic science world. One very insightful discourse on this subject is physicist Lee Smolin's The Trouble With Physics.

Repeatedly, Smolin describes the very foundations and situations that Marshall Barnes has lectured about. The situations that have produced wrong statements that are flawed by their being based on hidden assumptions. These statements have been accepted as fact by the scientific community regardless, due to its ignorance of those hidden assumptions. The key factor, of course, is that the assumptions are hidden. Sometimes even in plain sight, as is the case with the Duke University claim - they have an invisibility cloak but it only works with mircowaves. They say true invisibility is 30 years away but they say they have an invisibility cloak! The assumption is that their's is the only way that invisibility can be realized at all (not true) and that assumption ignores the more obvious question - why don't they just say what they do have - a metamaterial shield against microwaves - instead of claiming to have something that they admit on one hand that they don't have and isn't yet possible?!

Oddly enough, many times Smolin, in describing the types of individuals that he sees as potential leaders in solving science's present stagnating state, is unknowingly describing Marshall Barnes! 

See Smolin speak on his book's subject here - "Theoretical physicist Smolin argues that the study of physics has lost its way in the past two decades, largely because string theory has captured the imagination of both the public and some prominent physicists.  There is one deep flaw he sees in string theory: no part of it has been tested and no one knows how to test it.  In fact, the theory appears to come in an infinite number of versions, meaning that no experiment will ever be able to prove it false.  Yet it has soaked up the lion's share of funding, attracted some of the best minds and even penalized young physicists who question it.  The search for a theory of everything that is both beautiful and elegant has, he argues, derailed progress in the world of physics. Smolin will discuss the rise and fall of string theory and outline some exciting new ideas that can replace it -and are testable"

Buy this important book now at Phoenix Books! 

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Listen To Smolin and Brian Greene Debate

the Merits of String Theory

 

Talk of the Nation, August 18, 2006 · Is string theory the answer to the last big questions in physics, or a dead end? While some physicists believe that string theory could lead to a unifying theory, detractors say it's sloppy and founded on unwarranted assumptions.

Lee Smolin, author of The Trouble with Physics; faculty member, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics

Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos; professor of mathematics and physics, Columbia University