Will we develop anything faster than Radio Waves?

[Mo0o]

OP, do you realize all EM waves travel at the same speed... mainly light...

 

[Eli]

Faster? What do you mean?

Doesn't RF basically travel at the speed of light? lol

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: ed21x
in the future, we'd probably still use radio waves to communicate with satellites, which will then use lasers to transmit to other satellites in synchronised orbit, which will transmit to radio waves again at some other destination, remember, you heard it here first

So we're going to use light to transmit a signal, followed by a beam of light, and then convert that signal back into light...

You know that radio waves travel at the speed of light, right? They're all just different forms of light.

 

[So]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
I just read this: http://www.santafenewmexican.c...avel_faster_than_light

Does that have merit? Just force Radio waves to travel faster?

I read a discussion of something similar. Basically, they made the phase velocity of light faster than the light itself. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean that the actual wave traveled faster, only that it appeared to travel faster.

Just know this, Microwaves, radio waves and light are all forms of electromagnetic radiation (not to be confused with nuclear radiation), and all travel at the same speed in a vacuum: the speed of light. You can't make it go faster, and anything that went faster would be time travel, period. Serious scientists are looking into faster than light communication because it makes for interesting thought experiments, but so far no real scientists have made any real progress towards a functional "faster than light" communications system.

 

[Eeezee]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
I just read this: http://www.santafenewmexican.c...avel_faster_than_light

Does that have merit? Just force Radio waves to travel faster?

It sounds intriguing, but I think this could be another case of journalism misrepresenting science. About once or twice a year there is an article with the title "Einstein proven wrong." Literally, that is usually the title of the article, and every time whatever journalist that pens it thinks he's being super witty.

It sounds more like they're creating a huge radio pulse, but that doesn't mean that the pulse itself travels faster than the speed of light in vacuum. In fact, the method for generating "faster than light" radio waves isn't actually explained... it states that this machine does it without stating how. It then mentions pulsars, but pulsar light travels at the speed of light in a vacuum (not faster).

And then it mentions a relativistic fallacy; that if you shine a laser beam at the moon and then move your laser, the point on the moon will move faster than the speed of light. That's not true. It has no theoretical or experimental backing.

I'd love to hear more about this device. I hope it's not just another case of bad scientific journalism. Anything that allows us to break the speed of light in vacuum would be a giant leap forward for physics.

 

[Chronoshock]

Quantum entanglement allows the instantaneous transmission of the quantum state of a particle if its linked particle is observed. Unfortunately this doesn't allow for faster than light information transfer because I guess the knowledge of the particle's state isn't information carrying (I think because you can't set the state of the quantum particle, you only observe it, but my knowledge of this is basically from reading the Wikipedia entry on quantum entanglement so I could be completely wrong)

 

[Coldkilla]

I'm not one to spend several hours learning about quantum entanglement and the speeds of EM waves. I was just curious, hence why I come to you geniuses who already know this stuff

Even though all of it is interesting!

 

[NanoStuff]

Originally posted by: Chronoshock
Quantum entanglement allows the instantaneous transmission of the quantum state of a particle if its linked particle is observed. Unfortunately this doesn't allow for faster than light information transfer because I guess the knowledge of the particle's state isn't information carrying (I think because you can't set the state of the quantum particle, you only observe it, but my knowledge of this is basically from reading the Wikipedia entry on quantum entanglement so I could be completely wrong)

You can set the state, and you can observe, but the observer can't know whether the result they received was caused by such a change on the other side or whether they would have received that result without a change. So the interesting thing here is, you can instantly alter what an alien sees a million galaxies away, but you cannot communicate. Kind of a tease.

 

[CraKaJaX]

I'm currently reading this and he talks about this. It's very interesting to see the stuff that is deemed possible (it doesn't obey the laws of physics) today -- teleportation, psychokinesis, plasma shields, etc. There's a chapter he devotes to "Faster than the speed of light" and also "Radio Waves" but I have not gotten to them yet. I do suggest the book though, it's a very good read.

 

[destrekor]

Originally posted by: Eeezee

Originally posted by: ed21x
in the future, we'd probably still use radio waves to communicate with satellites, which will then use lasers to transmit to other satellites in synchronised orbit, which will transmit to radio waves again at some other destination, remember, you heard it here first

So we're going to use light to transmit a signal, followed by a beam of light, and then convert that signal back into light...

You know that radio waves travel at the speed of light, right? They're all just different forms of light.

well to make it clearer for the OP and those confused...

light is just a different form of electromagnetic radiation, part of the overall spectrum. Light just has specific frequencies, whereas radio waves have different frequencies (because the wavelengths are different size). So the energy of different forms will be different because of those two things (frequency and wavelength). They all travel at the same speed through a vacuum, however atmospheric conditions can effect their speed in a minor way. What we use for communication all depends on the way it needs to be used. Some are more direct (lasers, a 'style' of light manipulation), while others bounce all over the place and are better for multiple users picking up (radio), or we even use them to energize water to heat our food (microwaves). They all have many uses that are beyond simply providing light or communication, although theoretically all can be used for communication in some way.

However yes, without further manipulation of space or of more advanced and barely understood methods... we cannot make the waves go faster than the 'speed of light'.
Remember, all forms of electromagnetic radiation can be detected as light using the right equipment. What our eyes interpret as light is a tiny range of frequencies.

It'd be strange to run into a creature on a planet orbiting a radio star that would see radio light and not what we perceive as the visible spectrum.

+

 

[Modelworks]

Telepathy
Astronaut: "Nasa command, we are experiencing engine failure, need some ideas on how to remedy the situation"
Nasa: "I think I Can, I think I can, I think I Can"

 

[Bateluer]

We'd better develop something to both travel and communicate faster if we want to successfully explore and colonize other planets. However, we are still a Type 0 civilization.

 

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: Coldkilla
So theres no way to transmit data through light then ey?

*facepalm*

 

[Crono]

In my day, we didn't have radio waves. We used tin cans and string... and we liked it!

 

[mcturkey]

Just make sure that whatever we're sending is bad news.