Scientists Make Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light

Once again let me explain relativity to everyone that doesn't believe in FTL.

It's all about observational data. A person moving at the speed of light will see a slower moving object as frozen in time because they will receive the same light waves. To their perspective the slower moving object will have ceased to move because they see only the light moving as fast as they are.

If you move away from a slower moving object going faster than the speed of light it would appear that the object moves backwards. This is because you would see light as it were when the object was in the position it was in as you catch up to that point where the light from the object has moved to.

Nothing in relativity states that we cannot go faster than the speed of light. What it states is that observations made from the reflection of light cannot move faster than the speed of light relative to the speed of the object in motion.

If say you were in a point of space moving towards a planet at the speed of light you would intersect those reflections faster, therefore the object you are approaching would appear to move faster.

when you move away from an object at the speed of light you would perceive the object as stationary because you would be moving at the rate the reflected light from the object is moving.

reply to post by squiz


If aether exists, there must be contrails. simple as that.

If you are describing aether as a probability field. You're not describing aether. This is quantum mechanics.


Aether is a failure of a theory. The simple fact is that if you say that a medium is required for light to pass through, then the photon does not exist.

No, that picture is not a picture of an aether. That's just silly. it is a single photon being caught in film. You do not need to shoot photons to see it. It hits you. Then you see it.

Because the photo shows a clear item in the wave form of probability, aether does not exist.


You cannot have an item that light can propagate but which sound cannot. Even if it was neutrinos, you would STILL have sound.

Can you hear the sun? No. So there is no aether.

Can you see contrails of planets as they pass through whatever aether is? no. So it does not exist there either.


There is only the vacuum of space, which has the occasional particle or two whizzing by you.

The french fussion rector is using light to pressurize and heat up hydrogen to become helium.

It is a small star.

This would not be possible without bending space time.

Dr. Mallet and his team in America have full funding and are showing results too. This would not be possible without the bending of space time.


The fallacy in your argument is that you think everything can be explained. Why does it? You are nothing more than a mere carbon based creature whose brain was evolved to recognize complex situations and social networks. There is nothing that states you have evolved to understand how it works at the micro scale. Humans simply know that a spinning super item creates a gravity affect.

If it was aether or electricity, it would not be spinning at the equator of the mass where we know the gravity affects are the greatest. it would act just as electricity does and head for the poles. IE, orbit around it like a magnet, not a 2d gravity plane.

Things electromagnetically charged don't care where they are. Things affected by space time distortions do pick paths which line them up with the equator.

We didn't know how electricity worked at the micro scale. We just knew some basic rules that led to our benefit.

Gravity is no different.


The fact still remains that black holes eject at the poles and suck in at the equator.

Aether and electricity would not allow this

Looks like our good old friend Nikola Tesla knew what he was on about doesnt it.

Mind you, that was 70+ years ago.

Originally posted by whatukno
Once again let me explain relativity to everyone that doesn't believe in FTL.

It's all about observational data. A person moving at the speed of light will see a slower moving object as frozen in time because they will receive the same light waves. To their perspective the slower moving object will have ceased to move because they see only the light moving as fast as they are.

Nothing in relativity states that we cannot go faster than the speed of light.

when you move away from an object at the speed of light you would perceive the object as stationary because you would be moving at the rate the reflected light from the object is moving.

wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Please let me refer you to the second law of relativity. It states that the speed of light, in vacuum, is the same for all observers regardless of their relative motion.

This means that if you were flying away from an object at (or near) the speed of light, you would not see if stationary. Light would still travel at c in your frame!

Now I don't know if I'm the only one that facepalmed after reading the thread's title. Radio waves are electromagnetic radiation. Light is electromagnetic radiation.

Stating that radio waves move faster that the speed light would be equivalent to saying H2O evaporates faster than water. So lets rephrase the title: "Scientists Make Light Travel Faster than Light"

reply to post by rogerstigers


Good post. But I thought faster than light travel has already been proven in a laboratory in the form of Quantum Entanglement (aka non-locality) basically in the exact same way a radio wave works (Information being sent instantly to another location without the two ever being in contact). Scientists have seen this take place in the lab in which single particles can exist simultaneously in multiple positions at once.

This was talked about in that old movie "What the bleep do we know". You can see the excerpt from that movie here..


Talked about in 6:10.. Objects large enough to be visible to the naked eye and able to be in multiple places at once. Sometimes they can potentially be in 3,000 positions at once but still be a single wave function (a single particle) in the form of a Bose-Einstein Condensate.

But there are also alot of faster than light possibilities with regard to how we observe and interact with our universe. Alot of pretty bizarre things that most people don't know about.

Superposition and probabilities being determined by whether or not someone is directly observing what is taking place, Wave/Particle Duality, Bose-Einstein Condensates.

I looked for photographs of Bose-Einstein Condensates in the lab.. There are a couple that are pretty sweet.

Image 1 shows a condensate in a state of "fast rotation" ( can be found HERE along with multiple other photos and illustrations)

Explanation..

The structure of this mode can indeed bring new information on the nature of the gas in this regime. The monopole oscillation shows a "entering wave" phenomenon, as shown below. This figure was obtained for W/2p=67 Hz, by taking one picture evry millisecond during the monopole oscillation.

Image 2 shows an "Abrikosov Lattice" condensate state (can be found HERE )

Explanation..

When the condensate is stirred at a frequency larger than the critical frequency 0.7 wperp, we observe the nucleation of several vortices. When many vortices are present, they form a triangular lattice. This type of lattice is well known for type II supraconductors placed in a magnetic field, and it is called an Abrikosov lattice. The pictures below show lattices with up to 14 vortices. Using much bigger condensates, the MIT and Boulder groups have recently observed lattices with more than 100 vortices.

Also, HERE is somemore information about Bose-Einstein Condensates..

In June 1995 our research group at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (now called JILA) in Boulder, Colo., succeeded in creating a minuscule but marvellous droplet. By cooling 2,000 rubidium atoms to a temperature less than 100 billionths of a degree above absolute zero (100 billionths of a degree kelvin), we caused the atoms to lose for a full 10 seconds their individual identities and behave as though they were a single "superatom." The atoms' physical properties, such as their motions, became identical to one another.This Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), the first observed in a gas, can be thought of as the matter counterpart of the laser-except that in the condensate it is atoms, rather than photons, that dance in perfect unison.

Our short-lived, gelid sample was the experimental realisation of a theoretical construct that has intrigued scientists ever since it was predicted some 73 years ago by the work of physicists Albert Einstein and Satyendra Nath Bose. At ordinary temperatures, the atoms of a gas are scattered throughout the container holding them. Some have high energies (high speeds); others have low ones. Expanding on Bose's work, Einstein showed that if a sample of atoms were cooled sufficiently, a large fraction of them would settle into the single lowest possible energy state in the container. In mathematical terms, their individual wave equations-which describe such physical characteristics of an atom as its position and velocity-would in effect merge, and each atom would become indistinguishable from any other.

I've often thought about entanglement, in particular. And I've wondered if this is why the paranormal is real. Perhaps "ghost hunters" usually can't observe "ghosts" only because the energy of a dead person can exist everywhere at once in a quantum state. If the "entity" can be observed in one location, and only one location.. Only at that point is that being visible to people (a full body apparition). When the being is not in a fully body state, observable to human beings, they are invisible because they are everywhere at once. Thus, perhaps the only way for us to usually catch evidence of paranormal phenomenon is indirectly through things like EMF energy spikes, EVP phenomenon (electronic voice phenomenon), etc..

A physiologist named Ben Libit is also talked about in the afformentioned Movie. His research seems to prove that brain processes involve information being sent back in time to itself (aka temporal referral). He is mentioned in many books..

I found him talked about in this book called "The Yoga of time travel, how the mind can defeat time" by Fred Allen Wolf, pHd. This is talked about on Page 65 of this book (link from google books).

-ChriS

Originally posted by daniel_g

Originally posted by whatukno
Once again let me explain relativity to everyone that doesn't believe in FTL.

It's all about observational data. A person moving at the speed of light will see a slower moving object as frozen in time because they will receive the same light waves. To their perspective the slower moving object will have ceased to move because they see only the light moving as fast as they are.

Nothing in relativity states that we cannot go faster than the speed of light.

when you move away from an object at the speed of light you would perceive the object as stationary because you would be moving at the rate the reflected light from the object is moving.

wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Please let me refer you to the second law of relativity. It states that the speed of light, in vacuum, is the same for all observers regardless of their relative motion.

This means that if you were flying away from an object at (or near) the speed of light, you would not see if stationary. Light would still travel at c in your frame!

Now I don't know if I'm the only one that facepalmed after reading the thread's title. Radio waves are electromagnetic radiation. Light is electromagnetic radiation.

Stating that radio waves move faster that the speed light would be equivalent to saying H2O evaporates faster than water. So lets rephrase the title: "Scientists Make Light Travel Faster than Light"

Heyyyyyyyy

Nice to see a fellow ATSer who actually studied relativity at some point in their life

My take on this story is that the publisher left something on the cutting room floor. Some crucial part of what would be the article, or their understanding of basic physics, went MIA by the time this thing was published.

Now ATSers are going to be spewing this "news" as common knowledge that things can travel faster than the speed of light.

Sad day for science indeed.

Originally posted by BlasteR
reply to post by rogerstigers

 

Good post. But I thought faster than light travel has already been proven in a laboratory in the form of Quantum Entanglement

Quantum Entanglement is an odd thing, and theoretically, at least, there are some things you can change about a particle which, if entangled, would have to change the state of another particle (IE the paired/entangled particle), and supposedly does so without regard for the time it would take force carriers to communicate the change in state of either particle in the pair.

Unfortunately, afaik anyways, you can not use this for indefinite faster-than-light communication. You have to "prep" the particle pairs in advance, and once they are separated, you can only use them to send a signal once before you need to make classical (

Duplicate post

[edit on 1-7-2009 by Kaytagg]

Fascinating stuff!

But isn't radio still just photons that oscillate at a slower rate than visible light?

Another question that I hope some physicists will be able to answer:

I read Richard Feyman's book about QED and from what I understood photons are theoretically able to travel at any speed they like, slower or faster than "c", but the probabilities of it going at any other speed than c cancel each other out. Does this experiment exploit that somehow?

This Nonsense Has Gone on Long Enough

Originally posted by Kaytagg
So, anyone debunk this yet?

Yes, pathetic, isn't it? Nine pages of codswallop and a bunch of pseudoscientists jumping up and down in their undershorts going 'Einstein's rubbish has been disproved' and not understanding a word of what's going on. Very sad indeed.

Never mind, help is on way.

Quoted in the OP:

Singleton has created a gadget that abuses radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than light.

Fiddlesticks. The person who wrote this article doesn't have a clue what he or she is talking about.

rocksolidbrain had it exactly right:

Nothing is moving faster than light, he is only firing the radio pulses very fast through an array of antenna, so that all pulses seem to arrive at once at the receiver. It does produce some nice effects but its not FTL.

But our friend the OP's reading skills are a match for his knowledge of physics:

Originally posted by warrenb
Your link clearly even states that it is FASTER THAN LIGHT

In fact, what it states is

John Singleton of Los Alamos and his collaborators have built a radio transmitter that incorporates a radio wave source that moves superluminally (faster than light)...

The source of the waves is moving faster than light, not the waves themselves. They are still travelling at the speed of light, just as special relativity predicts.

And the superluminal 'source' isn't an object. It is merely a point in space: specifically, a point along a long strip of dielectric material. The material itself doesn't move. There is nothing to stop nothing (i.e. a point in space) from moving faster than light.

* * *

Wave Velocity and Group Velocity

As one or two smart folk suggested earlier, the solution of this non-paradox lies in the concept of group velocity, that is the velocity of a waveform as opposed to a wave. Even for light waves, group velocity can exceed wave velocity without anything having to move faster than light. But anyone who thinks this makes superluminal communication possible is in for a disappointment.

If a radio wave can be accelerated, maybe light in wave form can be accelerated as well.

This shows the level of ignorance at which the debate is being conducted. Light is electromagnetic energy. So is radio. They are the same thing - photons. And light (or rather the group velocity of a light pulse) has been accelerated to values greater than the speed of light in a vacuum. This post by visible_villain mentions one such experiment, though I'm afraid he draws quite the wrong conclusions from it:

Clearly Einstein's work advanced human knowledge only a step or two beyond where Newton left us on a ladder which rises much higher than any of us can imagine.

Our Villain is mistaken, I'm afraid. What is really going on in the experiment he describes is clearly explained in this PhysicsWorld article. What is happening in the OP experiment is similar in effect; the article explains it through the analogy of a sweeping lighthouse beam.

Einstein is not mocked, nor, indeed, rocked:

[The] conclusion that neither energy nor information travels faster than c remains valid, [though] group velocity is not entirely meaningless. The smooth Gaussian waveform is reshaped by the absorber, leading to a peak at precisely the time predicted by the [superluminal] group velocity. As for the energy, most of it is absorbed by the medium, and the sensible conclusion is that the transmitted energy comes from the leading edge of the incident pulse, which never travels faster than the speed of light. [Text in square brackets added by Astyanax.]

A superluminal group velocity is, frankly, no big deal:

Since the 1980s, various experiments have verified that it is possible for the group velocity of laser light pulses sent through specially prepared materials to significantly exceed the speed of light in vacuum. However, superluminal communication is not possible in this case, since the signal velocity remains less than the speed of light. It is also possible to reduce the group velocity to zero, stopping the pulse, or have negative group velocity, making the pulse appear to propagate backwards. However, in all these cases, photons continue to propagate at the expected speed of light in the medium.

So there you have it. No energy, no information, no photons moving faster than light. It's all just a scientific sleight of hand.

And nothing to see here except the usual ATS fantasies.

* * *

So...

Originally posted by Kaytagg
Sad thing is, most of the ATS users who read this article are now going to be spewing this as "common knowledge" every chance they get...

Just like the poor fellow earlier on in the thread who thinks the Big Bang hypothesis has been disproved. Bet he read that on ATS, too.

reply to post by Astyanax


Ah, good post.

As one or two smart folk suggested earlier, the solution of this non-paradox lies in the concept of group velocity, that is the velocity of a waveform as opposed to a wave. Even for light waves, group velocity can exceed wave velocity without anything having to move faster than light. But anyone who thinks this makes superluminal communication possible is in for a disappointment.

This is exactly what I was thinking of, although I could not remember what it was called, exactly (I remember having this debate several years ago ).

Thanks for clearing that up for all of us

This thread should be moved to the HOAX board, as that appears to be exactly what this thread is. It's misleading, untrue, and people should at least be aware that relativity is still intact, for now.

Originally posted by Astyanax
This Nonsense Has Gone on Long Enough

Yes, pathetic, isn't it? Nine pages of codswallop and a bunch of pseudoscientists jumping up and down in their undershorts going 'Einstein's rubbish has been disproved' and not understanding a word of what's going on. Very sad indeed.

I just wanted to point out, since I just know you were including me in your appraisal there Asty, regarding the Einstein stuff.
That I don't have a problem with your post at all. That's pretty good info.

I do have a problem with your attitude though.
Who knows perhaps one of these theories you condemn may be the diamond in the rough?
My only point that I wanted to make was in regards to the aether BTW. Although sort of relevant it's not much to do with this story. So sorry to the OP. Just wanted to set a few things straight regarding that issue, and offer an opinion. Would be nice to be able to do that without receiving responses delivered like that, all the while avoiding the other arguments concerning Einstein I must add. Which are beyond the scope of this thread anyway.
And quite impossible to reasonably discuss with a devotee.

But besides that, Good post. I gotta laugh out of the "Help is on the way" line too. Save us from the insanity Asty :lol

And sorry Gorman, but that's a bunk overload, whatever dude, too much work for me to deal with that load.

[edit on 1-7-2009 by squiz]

Great discussion so far. Please remember that disagreement is healthy for discussion. That does not make someone a "troll" or "hypocrite" for disagreeing. Let's continue the discussion with that and the following in mind-

1) Be polite: Above all, we take pride in the fact that AboveTopSecret.com is renowned as a destination for civil and polite discussion of nearly anything. Treat your fellow ATS members with respect, and your time here will be rewarding.

Discuss the topic not one and other. Thanks in advance

reply to post by TeslaandLyne

Photon is an invention for the existence of Einstein's science.

I think you should read Alhazen's (the same Ibn Al-Haytham I mentioned earlier) treatise on optics. It was written in the 11th century, 900 years before Einstein, and talks about the particulate nature of light. It's also considered one of the most influential milestones in physics (especially optics) and science in general. Thought the actual term photon wasn't derived until much later - and the understanding of photons wasn't nearly as comprehensive then as it was when the term was coined. The wave theory was developed in the 17th century by notable thinkers such as Descartes and Huygens.

Alhazen's work did for optics what Euclid's Elements did for mathematics.

So while Einstein had quite a lot to say about the properties of light, the "photon" was most certainly NOT invented as "Einsteinian Apologetics".

My questions on aether still go unanswered.

If you can't answer it, why do you support it?

reply to post by BlasteR


You should know that that movie has been condemned by the scientific community, especially quantum physicists, as being nonsensical pseudoscience. Many of the premises initially stated may be true - but then goes on to interpret unsubstantiated claims and postulations which don't logically follow their premise.

One of the easiest metrics to use; If quantum physics substantiated religion or spirituality in any way - then why are quantum physicists not converting to religions or spirituality in mass numbers? The likely answer, it doesn't.

Physics Today: Teaching physics mysteries vs. Pseudoscience.

American Chemical Society Review of the movie

Popsci.com review

David Albert, one of the scientists featured in the film, even accused the film makers of deliberately altering his interview to make it appear as if he supported the film's thesis, which is apparently not the case.

"but it is certainly the case that I was edited in such a way as to completely suppress my actual views about the matters the movie discusses. I am, indeed, profoundly unsympathetic to attempts at linking quantum mechanics with consciousness. Moreover, I explained all that, at great length, on camera, to the producers of the film ... Had I known that I would have been so radically misrepresented in the movie, I would certainly not have agreed to be filmed."

Salon.com: "Bleep of Faith"

The film also won the coveted "Pigasus" award from the James Randi Educational Foundation in 2004 in the category of "media outlet that reported as factual the most outrageous supernatural, paranormal or occult claims".

More than a dozen scientists, theologians and mystics appear. However, the product placement reveals that among the physicists, neurologists and academics who expound the film's thesis is "new age" icon J.Z. Knight, who claims to be channeling a 35,000-year-old god/warrior from Atlantis named Ramtha. The films' producers, writers, directors, and some of the stars are members of the Ramtha School of Enlightenment in Washington State. Several of the scientists are affiliated with Knight's school, and the film was largely financed by one of Knight's students. It's a blatant effort by religious, mystical, and New Age gurus such as Deepak Chopra to disguise their views as real science

James Randi Educational Foundation
(At the bottom of the page)

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by littlebunny

 

I am interested in your experiment, but not sure how it works, could you explain?

How does it work? I thought those simple instructions were, well... simple!


What I would like you to remember is this. The Earth has a three - dimensional footprint of roughly 512 billion voluminous miles. That object is traveling at just over 18.6 miles a second, the speed of light has been clocked at just over 186,000 miles per second. 18.6 and 186,000. Is there a correlation between those two numbers? Is there some reason why a photon appears to be both a wave and a particle. What would allow for a solid object to appear to be a wave? Could the Speed of the Earth, times the visual aspects of looking at an object that has an extremely small footprint, cause a wave illusion? Does the math suggest that is true and does doing visual experiments prove that to be true? Now those are real important questions. Let alone the effects of convection. Science has known for a very long time convection distorts our visual reality and that distortion changes by the angle viewed through the looking glass of convection. What science ignores however is the convection that is put off by the Sun and that we live right smack dab in the middle of it. Also, could the voidness of space simply be a by product of galactic velocity and magnetic attraction working in conjunction, as apposed to the visual illusion of bent space? Those questions are being re-asked and the answers are changing drastically as we measure the Universe in its true three-dimensional reality. Followed by one more question. If the Big Bang released all the matter this universe will ever have, and our own Sun releases particles into space every micro second. Then how could space be bent in a three-dimensional realty without effecting all the other space in a localized area, let alone the whole universe? Is the universe not unlike water, or is it nothing like water?

Grab a box and put a dot on the inside of that box. Then on the opposite side of your first dot put another dot, and then bring those dots together. What if anything does that little visual experiment suggest about the bending of space/time?


--Charles Marcello



[edit on 1-7-2009 by littlebunny]

I am curious to know.... if sound cant travel through a vacuum... and sound is comprised of waves? correct me if im wrong. Then how come we can send radiowaves through a vacuum. and technically a vacuum is void of any matter right? but isnt space filled with light and dust? it may be "emptier" than earth's atmosphere but its not truly empty.



the big bang theory doesnt sit well with me because a black hole is so dense that not even light can escape.... its gravity is too intense so nothing can escape except the occasional gamma rays or whatever. So how does all the matter in the universe explode versus make a big black hole?

reply to post by sciencenewby


There are not 1 kind of wave. A sound wave is an energy distribution through matter. light is a linear photon going in a straight line and oscillating.

Totally different things.

Space is a vacuum. There are 3 molecules or so for every square foot, or something along those lines.

These are simply random debris flying around.

A drop in th pool doesn't mean you can swim, and a few molecule in a vacuum mean it isn't a vacuum.


You've got a lot to learn about waves.


As to the big bang, it was lots of stuff stuck in a small volume, then the volume expanded.


it would be the same if you took a black hole and stretched it so much that it's own gravity field spread out so much that the black hole itself would be no more.

[edit on 1-7-2009 by Gorman91]

[edit on 1-7-2009 by Gorman91]

[edit on 1-7-2009 by Gorman91]

[edit on 1-7-2009 by Gorman91]

Originally posted by BlasteR
reply to post by rogerstigers

 

Good post. But I thought faster than light travel has already been proven in a laboratory in the form of Quantum Entanglement (aka non-locality) basically in the exact same way a radio wave works (Information being sent instantly to another location without the two ever being in contact).

Einstein called that "spooky action at a distance", and thought information could travel faster than light, but not particles or electromagnetic waves.

Regarding your source:

Scientists who have reviewed What the Bleep Do We Know!? have described distinct assertions made in the film as pseudoscience.

What_the_Bleep_Do_We_Know!

If you want to believe in alice and wonderland as that film suggests it's a good film. If you want to study science, I would avoid using that as a source. Actually, real quantum mechanics is so bizarre and strange you don't have to resort to psuedoscience to learn some amazing facts which seem to defy common sense.

Originally posted by sciencenewby
I am curious to know.... if sound cant travel through a vacuum... and sound is comprised of waves? correct me if im wrong. Then how come we can send radiowaves through a vacuum. and technically a vacuum is void of any matter right? but isnt space filled with light and dust? it may be "emptier" than earth's atmosphere but its not truly empty.

Sound reqires air (or other medium) molecules to propogate. Electromagnetic waves can propogate without such a medium, they actually propogate from themselves.

Originally posted by sciencenewby
the big bang theory doesnt sit well with me because a black hole is so dense that not even light can escape.... its gravity is too intense so nothing can escape except the occasional gamma rays or whatever. So how does all the matter in the universe explode versus make a big black hole?

Slightly OT, but there are some theories but nobody really knows what started the big bang. All you can really do is look at observations that everything is moving apart, if you project that backwards, then everything gets closer together the further back you go. Nobody knows what happened in the first fraction of a second, and why.

Originally posted by Astyanax
This Nonsense Has Gone on Long Enough

Thanks Asty. I couldn't believe people were reading the same article from the OP I was!!!! Until i read your post. That article is clearly written to sensationalize a headline but when you read the description of the experiment, muddled as that description is, seemed to say nothing but an imaginary point in space is traveling faster than the speed of light. We could imagine that before the experiment.

The analogy that comes to mind that might make it easier for people to visualize what is going in is if you replace that line of transmitters with a line of firecrackers. Now let's say you set one firecracker off. The sound will start traveling toward you at the speed of sound. Now lets say you set some other firecrackers off in that line closer to you, faster than than the sound wave is coming at you from the first firecracker. You will hear the firecrackers fired off later before you hear the sound from the very first firecracker. Does that mean the sound from the first firecracker traveled faster than sound to reach you? No, it's still traveling at the speed of sound. Well if the same author wrote that article he would headline it "sound travels faster than sound", but in reality it didn't. The sound from that first firecracker still reaches you at the speed of sound. But something did travel faster than sound, an imaginary point traveling over the tops of the firecrackers as they were ignited. Same thing with the transmitter experiment.


[edit on 1-7-2009 by Arbitrageur]