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Scientists create radio waves that travel faster than light
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Polarization Synchrotron. Looks like
a bunch of mouse traps, doesn't it?
In the Anime mini-movie Voices of a Distant Star, a girl by the name of Mikako joins a space army set to attack an alien race that attacked human cities on Mars (this is somewhat in the future, obviously). She has a friend back on earth, Noboru, that she sends messages to. As she warps with her fleet further and further from the earth, the messages she sends, though only a few days apart, take longer and longer to reach him, since they only travel at the speed of light, and Mikako is moving much faster. The last message takes over 8 years to reach Noboru, who has still not gotten over her. Touching. In one scene from this short film, there is a headline on a newspaper that indicates super lightspeed transmission is possible. That day has come.
.JPG)
Pulsar. The green is the
magnetic field...Probably...
Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) have found a way to create radio waves that travel faster than light (nearly 300 million meters per second or about 670 million miles per hour). This is done by a device called the Polarization Synchrotron (shown at left) that alters radio waves with a spinning magnetic field, forcing them to go faster than light. John Singleton, a fellow at the lab, likens the process to "abus[ing] radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than light." He claims that this process would explain why pulsars -dense, spinning stars- emit powerful signals. The faster light signal could catch up to the normal speed signal. As our telescopes pick up the two signals at once, it would appear as a more powerful signal.
No specific acheived speed has been released, but the waves that LANL have created are said to be very powerful and are about the size of a pencil point. Singleton already has a few ideas for such a technology. The needle-wide waves could be used for new cell phones to connect to satellites directly, instead of having to go through towers, which could provide faster, more secure communication without dead zones. The new technology could also assist in chemotherapy. In chemo, drugs are administered and activated by radio waves that hit the entire body. With the new, thinner waves, the drugs could be used in a more localized manner to target tumors specifically.
The Department of Energy has awarded the lab a $3 million grant to develop the project.
Tony Bownes is an Electrical Engineering Major at Christian Brothers University who wonders if this technology will build a better microwave to avoid the "hot lava / icy core" problem of Hot Pockets.
For more info: The Santa Fe New Mexican has the original story.
Additional info on Voices of a Distant Star is found here, and on pulsars, here.
And remember, if you want me to discuss or review anything gadget or tech related, just send me an email. My address is in my Bio.
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