Is mind reading possible?

We’re talking telepathy – the hypothetical ability of the human brain to transmit or receive the thoughts and feelings of others without using any means of communication. This is not a scientific concept, as it’s never been experimentally proven.

However, there are some trusted, scientifically verified ways to see what’s going on inside someone’s brain. For example, to gain a general understanding of the cognitive process, it’s enough to record and analyze the total electrical activity of the brain using EEG (electroencephalography). With this method, it’s possible to track changes in activity in the cerebral cortex at a point in time, as well as conclude if a person is engaged in thinking, asleep or awake, or doing some simple activities (such as clenching their jaw).

With all its benefits, EEG isn’t enough to learn what someone is thinking about – for that, we need to gauge the activity in various brain areas. This is also possible and most efficiently accomplished with MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). MRI allows us to take “images” of the brain when a person is performing a task and use this data to link certain brain areas to specific tasks: for instance, the temporal lobe is engaged in identifying objects and detecting spatial relations, while the amygdala regulates emotions and memory, as well as the “fight or flight” response. Depending on activation in different brain regions, researchers can conclude what the subject was doing at a certain point in the experiment.

Even now, these methods enable us to “read” and decode our thoughts using AI-based methods. For instance, recently, a team from the University of Texas at Austin has succeeded in reproducing specific sets of words and phrases from three participants based on their MRI scans using GPT-1-based software. The decoder was trained on MRI scans of people listening to podcasts (a total of 16 hours of recordings).

Can I move objects with my mind?

In order to not only read thoughts but do something with the power of your mind, you can use brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). These are systems that enable information exchange between brains and electronic devices. BCIs detect the brain’s electrical activity with electrodes and can be invasive (implanted into the brain) or non-invasive (i.e., wearable). 

BCIs can literally turn their user’s thoughts into actions and compensate for some functions, which is particularly beneficial for people with disabilities, who can use BCIs to control a cursor, an exoskeleton, or a prosthesis; such devices are already used by people with neurological diseases, including cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease, and spinal cord disorders. 

Not long ago, Elon Musk’s Neuralink unveiled their own BCI. In 2024, an invasive chip was implanted in a participant with quadriplegia (a form of paralysis). With the implant, the patient was able to move the cursor on a screen, turning on music and playing online chess.

What about invisibility cloaks?

Actually, many animals can successfully “disappear” – this is a crucial skill that helps them to hunt or hide from predators. Just one example are octopuses, who learned to blend into the surrounding landscape and its colors.

Being completely invisible, however, is much harder. Two principles can help us turn an object invisible. In the first case, electromagnetic waves have to pass through the object – think of the Invisible Man from the eponymous novel, who, with the help of chemicals, made his skin reverse-polarize light rather than let it scatter. In the second case, electromagnetic radiation circles the object and is thus transferred to its other side – this is the principle behind an invisibility cloak. 

Even though theoretically invisibility isn’t hard to imagine, it’s still impossible to achieve in reality on a large scale due to modern technological and material limitations. On the nanoscale, however, researchers already can create structures that make objects invisible.

Recently, a team headed by researcher Guosong Hong from Stanford University turned the skin of live mice invisible using molecular solutions with high attenuation coefficients – for instance, the tartrazine food dye.

Superheroes often fly. Is it possible in real life?

Making small objects levitate is an easy task – just use neodymium magnets. When such magnets are placed close to each other (and one of them is built into the target object), they start to repel each other. This way we can make, say, a potted cactus levitate.

Living objects are also capable of levitating even without magnets thanks to diamagnetism, a property of objects whose magnetic response is opposite to that of the applied external magnetic field. Water is a diamagnetic, which means that organisms that consist mainly of water can be made to levitate, too.

By the way, this is the property that enabled the famous levitating frog experiment that earned  researchers Andre Geim and Michael Berry the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize. 

Micron- and nanoscale objects also can be made to levitate with optical traps or optical tweezers. Typically applied in mass spectrometry to analyze chemical compositions of substances, optical traps create a specifically configured electric field, inside which charged microparticles will levitate and move along the trap’s axis. Optical tweezers function thanks to a luminous flux with an impulse: when it changes direction, a corresponding recoil impulse occurs and hinders the movement of a microparticle, as if holding it in the air. With this device, biologists can manipulate various types of cells and molecules.

Finally, we have to talk about controlling energy. 

Electrokinesis is the superpower that makes its owner capable of generating electricity and lightning. In some way, physicists have claimed it when they invented wireless power transfer (WPT). Today, it is already used to charge electric toothbrushes, smartphones, laptops, and smart home sensors, as well as transmit energy to satellites.

Read also: 

Going Wireless: Businesses Discuss Advances in Energy Tech

All About ITMO Researchers’ Latest Advances in Wireless Power Transfer

ITMO physicists, too, develop WPT technologies. In 2021, they created a perovskite-based glowing chess set powered by a transmitter in its board. In 2023, researchers from ITMO’s School of Physics and Engineering collaborated with charging systems manufacturer Yablochkov to present Russia’s first wireless electric car charger.

These days, the researchers are developing a WPT room – a safe space where it would be possible to wirelessly charge smartphones, laptops, VR sets, and other devices. On the way to this grand design, the team has already developed a new generation of wireless chargers: a box with a uniformly distributed magnetic field where you can charge more than three devices simultaneously.

This article is based on the talk about superpowers given by Pavel Belov at the Mayakovsky Central Public Library on October 22. It was held as part of a sci-fi talk series co-organized by ITMO’s School of Physics and Engineering and the Mayakovsky Central Public Library.