Scientists Make Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light

// added June 29, 2009 // 85 comments //
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EmperorThan

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Scientist John Singleton insists that Albert Einstein wouldn't be mad at him, even though at first blush Singleton appears to have twisted the famous physicist's theories about light into a pretzel.

Most people think Einstein said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but that's not really the case, Singleton said.

Einstein predicted that particles and information can't travel faster than the speed of light — but phenomenon like radio waves? That's a different story, said Singleton, a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow.

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

The polarization synchrotron combines the waves with a rapidly spinning magnetic field, and the result could explain why pulsars — which are super-dense spinning stars that are a subclass of neutron stars — emit such powerful signals, a phenomenon that has baffled many scientists, Singleton said.

"Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit radio waves in pulses, but what we don't know is why these pulses are so bright or why they travel such long distances," Singleton said. "What we think is these are transmitting the same way our machine does."

And beyond explaining what has been a bit of a mystery to the astronomical community, Singleton's discovery could have wide-ranging technological impacts in areas such as medicine and communications, he said.

"Because nobody's really thought about things that travel faster than light before, this is a wide-open technological field," Singleton said.

One possible use for the resulting speedy radio waves — which are packed into a very powerful wave the size of a pencil point — could be the creation of a new generation of cell phones that communicate directly to satellites, rather than transmitting through relay towers as they now do.

Those phones would have more reliable service and would also be more difficult for hackers to intercept, Singleton said.

Another application could be in very targeted chemotherapy, where a patient takes the drugs, and the radio waves are used to activate them very specifically in the area around a tumor, he said.

If Einstein were still alive, he probably wouldn't be all that surprised by the discovery, Perez said, even if it does seem on the surface to conflict with some of his theories.

"He might have thought, 'why did this take so long,' " Perez said.
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85 comments // Scientists Make Radio Waves Travel Faster Than Light

  • Oscar_Prado
  • Dagum
  • niuzai069
  • D_vondutch
  • DeutschFan
    • 0
      DeutschFan  

    • Radio waves and light are both electromagnetic radiation. just change the frequency and you can move between one and the other. This article is like the ones saying, "Look out for dihydrogen oxide! it kills people!"

    • 7 months ago
  • BinAlaDiN
    • 0
      BinAlaDiN  

    • This is probably the stupidest sh*t I've ever read.
      Radio waves ARE light. Einstein DID set a cap on the speed of all electromagnetic waves, not "particles and information". And its only since then we STOPPED thinking about faster than light so much. This whole post is a joke right? must be...

    • 7 months ago
  • TentativeChaos
  • brit50
    • 0
      brit50  

    • Maybe one day we will discover a way for living beings and objects to also travel the speed of light. Very cool technological innovation.

    • 7 months ago
  • mmfiore
    • 0
      mmfiore  

    • An interesting comment from the scientist? "Singleton has created a gadget that abuses radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than light. I wonder if this is a quote from Singleton. It does not sound like a technically sound scientific explanation.
      We have a better explanation that also uses High Magnetics. The Theory of Super Relativity has been predicting this for years now. Come to the website and read how to build Spatial Bias Drive. We call it the Slip Wave Drive. This device creates the Slip Wave Field which is the one and only way to travel faster than light. Read the article "How to Build a Warp Drive using SR Theory.

      We are a group that is challenging the current paradigm in physics which is Quantum Mechanics and String Theory. There is a new Theory of Everything Breakthrough. It exposes the flaws in both Quantum Theory and String Theory. Please Help us set the physics community back on the right course and prove that Einstein was right! Visit our site The Theory of Super Relativity: www.superrelativity.org

    • 7 months ago
  • echothirteen
  • davesarush
  • nickurfe21
    • 0
      nickurfe21  

    • I think this is interesting but....

      Oh I am sorry, the call must have dropped because I moved my head a micron to the left and the pencil point transmission from my cell phone missed the satellite by 100 yards.

      I hate it when science stops being practical.

    • 7 months ago
  • ocanada
    • 0
      ocanada  

    • Does this mean that tacheons are a naturaly existing phenomenon as postulated in this article pulsars? Incredible. This opens up the reality of our universe that there is still so much we don't know. We fledgelings have yet to even set foot on mars within our own solar system.

    • 7 months ago
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  
    • Image...

    • Astrophysics > Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
      Title: A new mechanism for generating broadband pulsar-like polarization
      Authors: Houshang Ardavan, Arzhang Ardavan, Joseph Fasel, John Middleditch, Mario Perez, Andrea Schmidt, John Singleton
      (Submitted on 2 Mar 2009)

      Abstract: Observational data imply the presence of superluminal electric currents in pulsar magnetospheres. Such sources are not inconsistent with special relativity; they have already been created in the laboratory. Here we describe the distinctive features of the radiation beam that is generated by a rotating superluminal source and show that (i) it consists of subbeams that are narrower the farther the observer is from the source: subbeams whose intensities decay as 1/R instead of 1/R^2 with distance (R), (ii) the fields of its subbeams are characterized by three concurrent polarization modes: two modes that are 'orthogonal' and a third mode whose position angle swings across the subbeam bridging those of the other two, (iii) its overall beam consists of an incoherent superposition of such coherent subbeams and has an intensity profile that reflects the azimuthal distribution of the contributing part of the source (the part of the source that approaches the observer with the speed of light and zero acceleration), (iv) its spectrum (the superluminal counterpart of synchrotron spectrum) is broader than that of any other known emission and entails oscillations whose spacings and amplitudes respectively increase and decrease algebraically with increasing frequency, and (v) the degree of its mean polarization and the fraction of its linear polarization both increase with frequency beyond the frequency for which the observer falls within the Fresnel zone. We also compare these features with those of the radiation received from the Crab pulsar.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superluminal_motion

    • 7 months ago
  • subgiant
    • 0
      subgiant  

    • Hi there. I'm a pulsar astronomer working in Australia so your article interested me... it indeed sounds like a fair load of bullshit, or at least sounds like the scientists were maybe using metaphors that the journalists didn't understand and so mis-printed. What I'm not sure of though, is whether they're making the distinction between something "superluminal"--which appears to be moving faster than the speed of light--versus something which is actually moving faster than the speed of light. We see relativistic beaming all the time in Astronomy, in which jets (like the ones coming out of pulsars) appear to flow out of huge black holes at faster than the speed of light. However, like the "laser across the moon" metaphor, this is only in effect an "optical illusion", we might say... that is, the light is travelling from your laser and hitting the moon; the "dot" on the moon isn't itself moving. I might wait until a more substiantial publication before getting too excited about this one!!

    • 7 months ago
  • billwatt
    • 0
      billwatt  

    • Found a pretty thoughtful response to this article.... I'm not going to pull because it is pretty long and detailed but click through for the response.

    • 7 months ago
  • The_Blue_Mage
    • 0
      The_Blue_Mage  

    • Let me recap what's going on here!

      1) Is Physics wrong!?

      -No laws of physics are being violated; this is not a fake scientific experiment.

      2) Is Einstein wrong!?

      -No information/particles/signals are being transmitted faster-than-light. Einstein's theory of special relativity is still valid.

      3) Then what IS going faster than light!?

      -The moving patterns are going faster-than-light, but they are formed by many particles (or radio emitters) moving slower-than-light. (For the physicists: the group or particle velocity is slower than light, but the phase velocity can be set to any arbitrary speed)

      4) How does this work!? (in a nutshell)

      -The principle is to coordinate all the radio emitters (in the picture) so that the emitters 'turn on' in sequence so fast that the 'light' (in this case radio frequency) from one emitter doesn't reach the next one in the sequence before that next emitter 'turns on'.

      Simpler picture (that may be easier to think about):
      i) Place many light bulbs in a row.
      ii) Coordinate all the on/off switches with a computer.
      iii) Turn on light bulb 1.
      iv) Quickly turn on light bulb 2 BEFORE the light from bulb 1 reaches bulb 2!
      v) Quickly turn on light bulb 3 BEFORE the light from bulb 2 (and also bulb 1) reaches bulb 3!
      vi) Repeat this with all the bulbs...

      5) So how is this 'superluminal'?

      -Using the light bulb analogy: if the light bulbs are small enough and the timing is near-perfect (done with advanced computer electronics) then you can see a moving 'source' of light that is going faster than light!

      Again, this doesn't break any laws of physics. What happens is the bulbs are actually stationary, but the traveling wave (made by a superposition of these bulbs in a particular phase) can be made to go as fast as desired! In fact, if you turn on ALL the bulbs at the same time, you can simulate a wave that travels at infinite velocity (in either direction).

      6) So what's this machine about? Why is it curved?

      -Dr. Singleton is interested in how a rotating superluminal pattern behaves. The curved machine is to model an arc segment of a circle where the wave is constructed to move in a circle at constant velocities. The idea is to understand how pulsars (rapidly rotating dense magnetic objects) work, and how they affect the plasma around it (for physicists: particularly outside the light cylinder).

      Closing remarks:
      Again, this is not fake or 'loony' science; there is a lot of theory that goes into this. The original article posted in the Santa Fe New Mexican was a little misinforming in that it worded some of the facts either a too vaguely or incorrectly. If you are interested in seeing more of this exciting new theory please see some articles written by the scientists! Here are a few:

      http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0301083

      http://arxiv.org/abs/0805.0298

      http://arxiv.org/abs/0710.3364

      http://arxiv.org/abs/0709.1283

    • 7 months ago
  • modzer0
    • 0
      modzer0  

    • This is very interesting, but I wish there was at least a link to a much more detailed technical explanation of what this is.

      Radio waves ARE particles. Particles are waves. This is known as wave-particle duality and is well known in physics. Everything can be treated as a particle or a wave. Yes, even the tiny particles that we are all made of. So you can't say that particles can't travel faster than light but waves can, because they're two different ways of representing the same phenomena. And, as someone else pointed out, both radio waves and light are the same thing-- just different frequencies of the same EM radiation.

      Waves can also transmit information. Which this article also claims can't be done faster than light.

      This article is a great way to get the average person all wound up about faster-than-light stuff, but it really says nothing at all.

      I have some extensive physics background, and I truly believe they have accomplished something of note here, but I really have no idea what that might be, with virtually no real information given.

      I'm not being a troll-- I'd love to know more about what this actually is. Does anyone have a link to some real information about this experiment?

    • 7 months ago
  • EmperorThan
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  

    • So what is this infamous sonic boom, if not the shattering of the picture-window-in-the-sky?
      .
      It's a stampede of traumatized air molecules, actually.

      When a plane flies slower than the speed of sound (which is 750 mph at sea level and 660 mph at six miles above sea level, where the air is colder), the air molecules have time to part and flow smoothly around it. But, like cheese molecules or water molecules, air molecules can only move so fast. They have a built-in speed limit. And since sound is a disturbance passing from molecule to molecule, like falling dominos, the speed of air molecules limits the speed of sound.

      So when an airplane goes faster than the speed of air/sound, it stops slicing the air like a knife and begins pushing it like a plow, shoving a fat plug of chaotic molecules before it. As with an explosion, this insult to the molecules generates a shock wave that ripples outward in a sphere. When that shock wave, traveling at the speed of sound, reaches your ear, it sounds like "BOOM."

      But "boom" is misleading. No, you don't bounce off the sound barrier, and no, you don't make a boom when you break through it.
      .
      "People think when you go through the sound barrier, it makes this sound once," says Robinson. "That's wrong. You're dragging this boom around with you wherever you go."

    • 7 months ago
  • hammywill
  • ras_menelik
  • hammywill
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  
    • hammywill:

      good answer then is there such a thing as traveling slower than time ,stopping in time and traveling faster than time?

      is every thing moving at the same time speed?

      If you answer this in any way that will blow my mind.

    • 7 months ago
  • hammywill
    • 0
      hammywill  
    • hammywill:

      No, there is no such thing as traveling slower than time. Since time is a measurement of movement. You can not stop at all. Speed is relative to your position and what object you are using to measure and weather or not said object is also moving. One can not say if you are moving faster or slower since it is relative.

    • 7 months ago
  • ras_menelik
  • ras_menelik
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  

    • STS-115 Space Shuttle Atlantis blasts off from Kennedy Space Center Florida. Near the end of the clip you can see the vapor cloud as the shuttle breaks the sound barrier. @ 1:11

      I put up that real picture of the sound barrier being shattered(sonic boom!) to make the point that light and sound are a small part of the same thing Big that we don't have a full grasp on as a species so the laws of man when it comes to science only blind us from the infinite possibility's.............

    • 7 months ago
  • ras_menelik
  • ras_menelik
  • ras_menelik
  • arfnotz
    • 0
      arfnotz  

    • Typical shoddy reporting of technology. The "scientist" is confusing group velocity with phase velocity. Phase veleocity is often faster than light, but contans no informatin or energy. It is common in waveguide structures. While he's built a shiney machine and got a small town paper to go "gee whiz", he's done nothing that radar and communication engineers don't do on a regular basis.

    • 7 months ago
  • nursediesel
    • 0
      nursediesel  

    • WHOA!
      Wonder what this will lead to? Hope it's all good stuff. You know, for the greater good for man kind. Sending messages to the past, will that change the future? Hmmm, thought provoking stuff here!

    • 7 months ago
  • letslets
    • 0
      letslets  

    • This one of those things that is so big that there's no way to know what will come of it. The first thing that has made me think "I wish I was young enough to deal with this.

    • 7 months ago
  • T_Rose
    • 0
      T_Rose  

    • Radio waves are light. The title makes no sense. Also if Einstein were alive he would be amazed by this then steal it and publish it under his own name like everything else he did.

    • 7 months ago
  • jmghiglieri
  • sfduchamp
  • Argon18
    • 0
      Argon18  
    • sfduchamp:

      That's why they call him a "miracle worker" especially since in that particular instance when he said that, he worked out a different procedure to "coldstart" the warp engines.

      So in effect he didn't "change" the laws of physics he just found a way around the current understanding of them.

      Just like the subject of the article that radio waves don't "change" the laws of physics, the research deepens our understanding of them.

    • 7 months ago
  • ras_menelik
  • numinant
  • ImaginaryUnit
    • 0
      ImaginaryUnit  

    • Great stuff. IMO Einstein's theory only indicates that the speed of light is an *absolute constant*, as opposed to other things (like my speed) that are always *relative* wrt something else, and also not necessarily *constant*.

      Being an absolute constant is not the same as being a limit.

    • 7 months ago
  • emote_control
    • 0
      emote_control  
    • ImaginaryUnit:

      Actually, it is a limit. If the speed of light is an absolute constant, that means that the speed is always the same, no matter the state of the observer. So if a photon goes past you, it always has a velocity of c (in a vacuum). That holds true even if you are yourself moving very fast. No matter how fast you're going, the photon will go past you at c. That's why the speed of light is the maximum speed: if you could go faster than the speed of light, the photon would not be able to go past you at c, and so the constant would not hold for all observers. That's the essence of relativity: all laws of physics hold for all observers at all times. The speed of light does not change no matter how fast you're moving, because speed is relative, not absolute.

      This article is pretty devoid of information, and the author doesn't seem to understand that radio waves are also particles. All electromagnetic radiation is comprised of photons of various wavelengths. Given this misunderstanding, the conclusions seem suspect.

      Now, either the article isn't telling us everything, or the researchers have totally smashed Einstein's theory of relativity. Considering how important that would be, and how this story isn't being widely reported, I'm fairly skeptical concerning these results and what they really indicate.

    • 7 months ago
  • ImaginaryUnit
    • 0
      ImaginaryUnit  
    • ImaginaryUnit:

      hello emote

      You say "if you could go faster than the speed of light, the photon would not be able to go past you at c".

      To satisy the laws of physics, it is enough for the photon to move at c : there is no requirement for the photon to "go past me".

    • 7 months ago
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  
    • Image...

    • this is what braking the sound "barrier" looks like..............

      now replace sound waves with light and imagine what braking the light barrier sounds like

    • 7 months ago
  • royulery
  • jmghiglieri
    • 0
      jmghiglieri  
    • ras_menelik:

      Uh, it wouldn't make a sound. If you replaced the sound barrier with light, there wouldn't be any sound waves for you to hear!

      Of course, breaking the light barrier WOULD be extremely bright!

    • 7 months ago
  • onemalefla
  • pnuttbuttajelli
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  
    • ras_menelik:

      I said image it because it is not a wave length that you or I can hear smart ass

      click on this picture and look @ it very carefully @ full resolution and tell me why you can see the braking of the imaginary audibility wave barrier, you have to throw out all the things you have been told are set in stone for the only thing that is so is CHANGE.

    • 7 months ago
  • ras_menelik
  • dablaq
    • 0
      dablaq  

    • It is amazes me... I can't wait for practical applications of it.
      Does that means that some laws of physics have to be re-written?? Which law of physics did he break/bend??

    • 7 months ago
  • csmonut
  • S3th
  • royulery
    • 0
      royulery  

    • traveling faster than light is time travel. matter has many apparently different fields; gravity, time, space etc..., but they are all part of the same thing. increase mass and; gravity increases, light bends more, time moves slower, more space exists, speed decreases etc... . increase speed and; mass increases, time slows(more time). all these things are relative to one another, they are characteristics of the same thing. einstein said time is relative, i say relatives take all my time.

    • 7 months ago
  • manfreddrake
  • hammywill
  • remanns
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  
    • hammywill:

      it depends on what you define traveling threw time as, 200 years ago a horse carried you 30 miles a day Atlantic-pacific if you made it cost you years 1/6 of a life ........today 10 hours 1/40,000 of a life will get you there

      To Ben Franklin's time that is time travel but to us it's no big deal...........

    • 7 months ago
  • Mike_Johnston
    • 0
      Mike_Johnston  

    • tachyons are particles which are supposed to travel faster than light.

      The whole time thing will be interesting to see unfold. Since the speed of light is not the posted speed limit will our understanding of time also have to change?

      I mean just because the math works doesn't mean it is an accurate representation of a physical reality...

    • 7 months ago
  • retro_Syl
  • currentlilmexbro
  • retro_Syl
  • remanns
  • onemalefla
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  
    • onemalefla:

      well here's what I can do for you,If you get the service plan with the receiver we'll let you call yourself if the next one also goes south on you...................

      PS
      Our client list is privet so Do not ask if your future X is a client :)

    • 7 months ago
  • onemalefla
  • ras_menelik
  • pjacobs51
  • csmonut
  • Argon18
    • 0
      Argon18  
    • onemalefla:

      The trouble is that you probably wouldn't pay attention to the message even on the very small chance that you believed it.

      Just like people don't listen to their parents when they tell them the same thing and marry people out of spite for their parents trying to tell them what to do with their lives.

    • 7 months ago
  • onemalefla
  • Argon18
    • 0
      Argon18  
    • onemalefla:

      That is a bit of a different situation isn't it?

      Unless you were in love with your stock broker then you would've listen to her even if she told you to invest in Pets.com before the dot.com bubble burst.

    • 7 months ago
  • ras_menelik
  • WakeUpPeople
    • 0
      WakeUpPeople  

    • Whoa... pin point radio waves.

      "Receiving transmission
      from David Bowie's nipple antennae
      Do you read me, Lieutenant Bowie?
      I said do you read me, Lieutenant Bowie?

      This is Bowie to Bowie
      Do you hear me out there, Man?
      This is Bowie back to Bowie
      I read you loud and clear, Man, ooh yeah man"

    • 7 months ago
  • sickinjersey
  • ras_menelik
  • onemalefla
  • ras_menelik
    • 0
      ras_menelik  
    • ras_menelik:

      well I can't talk much about my Gismos(patent pend.and all...) but I can tell you.You can tell anything you want to anyone you want at anytime you want as long as you can get the receiver to them.............

    • 7 months ago
  • onemalefla
  • ras_menelik
  • sarahlane
  • ras_menelik
  • letslets
    • 0
      letslets  
    • sarahlane:

      Sarah, Thanks for tweeting this I RT'ed it and have email your tweet to others.
      I just registered on current and that's do to your being there.
      Looking forward to Friday,
      D Lets

    • 7 months ago
  • ras_menelik
  • dreamsenvoy
  • Hou_Kairs

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