Baku, February 27 (AZERTAC). Whilst this may sound like something straight out of a science fiction novel, mathematician Dr William Parnell from Manchester University in the United Kingdom believes that their newly developed 'cloaking' device could one day protect buildings when an earthquake strikes. The technique makes an object near invisible to light, sound or vibration waves.

Cloaking devices work by covering components of structures with pressurized rubber. If applied to a building, powerful waves such as those produced by an earthquake wouldn't 'see' the building. In theory, they would pass by the structure and serious destruction would be avoided.

Outlining their findings in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A, the team describes how this cloaking technique could one day be important for safeguarding structures such as nuclear power plants, electric pylons and government offices - during both natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

While research into cloaking from light waves began about six years ago, there hasn't been much work carried out on waves in solid bodies such as those produced by earthquakes.

Dr William Parnell elaborates: 'We showed theoretically that pre-stressing a naturally available material - rubber - leads to a cloaking effect from a specific type of elastic wave. Our team is now working hard on more general theories and to understand how this theory can be realized in practice. This research has shown that we really do have the potential to control the direction and speed of elastic waves. This is important because we want to guide such waves in many contexts, especially in nano-applications such as in electronics, for example. If the theory can be scaled up to larger objects, then it could be used to create cloaks to protect buildings and structures, or perhaps more realistically to protect very important specific parts of those structures.'