Oh God No, It's a Space-Time Cloak

That space-time cloak—or TARDIS, or Star Trek transporter—you always wanted may be within reach. Researchers first proposed an “invisibility cloak” a few years ago. But now, optical physicists have now drawn up blueprints for a cloak that creates a separate reality pocket in which any event can be concealed, Nature reports.

Here’s how it works: the space-time cloak’s refractive index changesconstantly, pulling light waves apart in time. The material is manipulated to speed up a light wave as it hits the cloak, only to then slow it down again as the trailing edge hits, the report said.

“Between these two parts of the light, there will be a temporal void — a space in which there will be no illuminating light for a brief period of time,” said Martin McCall, an optical physicist at Imperial College London who led the project.