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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- recommended by:
- DeliaTheArtist,
- ras_menelik
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- EmperorThan
- added this
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This could be really cool. If true...could change the world!
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approved
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- dreamsenvoy
- 5 months ago
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Very cool... made my brain hurt a little.
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So we can send messages back to the future!
Warning use with caution!....................
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- ras_menelik
- 5 months ago
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Aw Jeez
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- sickinjersey
- 5 months ago
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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"-
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- WakeUpPeople
- 5 months ago
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Superluminally Transmitting
Talking about your Dawn of a new Age!
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- ras_menelik
- 5 months ago
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I would send a message to myself.
"DO NOT MARRY THAT STUPID BITCH YOU FUCKING DUMBASS!"-
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- onemalefla
- 5 months ago
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THAT is mind blowing.
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Great achievement, hope the LHC has similar success whenever they restart the collider.
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this is awesome. human race never ceases to amaze.
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- currentlilmexbro
- 5 months ago
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Great achievement, hope the LHC has similar success whenever they restart the collider.
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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...
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This story is AWESOME! Also, traveling faster than light does not equal traveling through time.
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Does it emmit a force? If so, is it scalable? If so, we have a new propulsion system in it's infancy. Where can we invest?
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- manfreddrake
- 5 months ago
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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.
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Fascinating, to say the least.
Science fiction has become science fact in many regions. -
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?? -
this is what braking the sound "barrier" looks like..............
now replace sound waves with light and imagine what braking the light barrier sounds like
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- ras_menelik
- 5 months ago
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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.
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- ImaginaryUnit
- 5 months ago
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Neato. Science is great, but use responsibly.
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"BUT CAP'N, I CANNA CHANGE THE LAWS O' PHYSICS!"
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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.
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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.
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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!-
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- nursediesel
- 5 months ago
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