This is really bothering me... (Physics)

[crossingoceans]

I read somewhere on the internet about a device that, apparently can allow data to travel faster than speed of light, it also said that only microwaves can do this. It's still experimental but if they can perfect it, it's gonna be a huge milestone in technology. Specially to communicate with astronauts when they're in mission on other planets.

[Tread]

Originally Posted by Icekiller

I read somewhere on the internet about a device that, apparently can allow data to travel faster than speed of light, it also said that only microwaves can do this. It's still experimental but if they can perfect it, it's gonna be a huge milestone in technology. Specially to communicate with astronauts when they're in mission on other planets.

Never heared of that. Have you any links or verificationon this?
I can't belief that it is possible.

[crossingoceans]

Let me search for it. I read it on overclock.net but it seems like the thread was deleted...

EDIT: I found it, here it is

http://current.com/items/90301786_sc...t.htm?xid=ch60

[TracyCoxx]

I'm interested in that link too. Are you talking about the polarization synchrotron?

[TracyCoxx]

Nothing is actually traveling faster than the speed of light though. Here's a better explanation:
http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/19957

They're trying to mimic the way they say the magnetic field behaves around some neutron stars. They say the neutron stars rotate so fast that at a distance large enough away, the polarization of the surrounding plasma rotates faster than light. But that's not really anything moving faster than light. It's like if you had a really bright flashlight and were shining it on a bigass wall 1 light year away, and you swept the light back and forth real fast. There would be a spot on the wall moving faster than light since it's so far away. But a fast moving spot of light doesn't violate anything, because it's not the same packet of light moving that fast... it consists of different photons all the time.

The real interesting part of the article, if it's true, is that due to the polarization rotating faster than light that they can get the light or radio signal to maintain its intensity better. Normally, if r is the distance from the source, its intensity would decrease 1/r^2 from the source. These guys claim they can cause the light or radio beam to decrease in intensity 1/r from the source, which means you don't have to have such an intense source to be received by someone else far away. To really test this though, they're going to have to test it over distances of 10s of thousands of miles. The reflector on the moon left by astronauts would be a good way to test it.

[Tread]

It seems to be a generaly wave effect, similar to the experiment that TracyCoxx linked. It look like the wave is faster than the speed of light. Measurements show that the wave arrive before it is send. That mean to effect the past!? But in this experiments no information or particles travel faster than the speed of light. The entire particles cause the effect as wave.

The faster than the speed of light experiments are currently repeat by others to verify or not.
Tryes to send a waves, that are unpredictable, showed that the arrived wave was not the same as the emitted.

I search an english article.

[Tread]

The most named critical is Raymond Chiao from the University of California, Berkeley 1967-2006 / University of California, Merced 2006-today.

I don't know how thrustfull the pages are, Chiao is a respectable physicist.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=120094&page=1
http://www.ufoevidence.org/documents/doc1082.htm

Also interesting: quantum tunnelling, 1.7 faster than the speed of light.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Faster...ons-a015570666

I must inform me about magnetic fields around pulsars, but I think it's the same or a similar effect.

[TracyCoxx]

Also interesting: quantum tunnelling, 1.7 faster than the speed of light.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Faster...ons-a015570666

Quoting from that article:

This result doesn't necessarily violate the notion that cause precedes effect. To send a message or cause a real effect, a shutter must be opened or something else happen to create a sharp break in a wave packet. A wave packet's peak can never overtake this boundary.

The front velocity -- how quickly the boundary travels -- never exceeds the speed of light, Chiao says. It's this speed that conveys information and ensures that cause comes before effect.

With quantum mechanics, you can tunnel, but nothing useful will ever travel faster than light. It's complicated to explain, but that's it I'm afraid. And sub atomic particles, or even small atoms can routinely tunnel small distances, but the larger or more numerous the particles the less likely it will occur. i.e., there's about a 1 in 10^80 chance that I can tunnel through the wall in my house. So it's possible, but not likely.