Category Archives: Invisibility

TEDxGhent – Listen, Think, Digest
Not sure whether it is an idea worth spreading more than others, but this was a very interesting venue to talk about the ways in which the science behind invisibility is transforming Applied Physics.

Interview on Radio 1 – Weet ik veel?
A conversation about the lightness of being – including how to solve Olber’s paradox, how to measure the speed of light, and how to become (in)visibile. Full interview (in Dutch) can be found here.

Sophie Viaene successfully defended her PhD on the exploration of metamaterial horizons
Einstein’s theory of general relativity has dramatically changed our world view, by describing gravity as an intrinsic deformation of space and time. About fifteen years ago, John Pendry and Ulf Leonhard had the intriguing idea to emulate the behaviour of light in a deformed space by making use of carefully designed artificial metamaterials. Metamaterials consist […]

A question for Science
The campaign “A question for Science” is an initiative of the Flanders Scientific Research Fund (FWO), commissioned by Flemish Minister Muyters, responsible for science and innovation, in collaboration with a broad group of scientific organizations, such as the Flemish universities and colleges, the KVAB, the Young Academy, the strategic research centers … As an ambassadors […]

Vice interview on invisibility
What does it mean to be invisible? And will we ever buy one of those invisibility cloaks? The science is even better than the science fiction. The full interview (in Dutch) can be found here.

Popularizing talk at the “Universiteit van Vlaanderen”
Can we make people invisible? Yes, no, well… maybe. It depends on how you define invisibility. The full lecture (in Dutch) can be found here.

Plenary lecture at Solvay Award Ceremony 2017
The 2017 Chemistry for the Future Solvay Prize was awarded to Professor Susumu Kitagawa for his work in developing metal organic frameworks, a new class of materials with a range of potential future applications, including the capturing of polluting gases. I delivered a speech, titled A conversation between Einstein, Magritte and Harry Potter, at this Solvay Prize […]