LANL scientist makes radio waves travel faster than light

[Ian David]

LANL scientist makes radio waves travel faster than light

Sue Vorenberg | The New Mexican

1/18/2008 - 1/19/08
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.



Courtesy Los Alamos National Laboratory
Photo: This Los Alamos National Laboratory gadget, called a polarization synchrotron, combines radio waves and a rapidly spinning magnetic field, which forces radio waves to travel faster than the speed of light. The resulting phenomenon could lead to new technologies in health and communications.


More:
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/HealthandScience/LANL_scientist_makes_radio_waves_travel_faster_than_light


See also:

Four Los Alamos physicists honored by American Physical Society
http://www.lanl.gov/news/releases/archive/05-009.shtml


Still trying to track down something peer-reviewed on this.


Hat-tip to: http://twitter.com/drkiki/statuses/2403192188

[Bill McBlueState]

1. the article's a little misleading

in the way it treats radio waves and light as two different phenomena. Radio waves are the long-wavelength version of light.

[Salviati]

3. And the whole "spot of light moving on the moon" thing...

I mean that's the textbook example of a phenomena moving "faster than the speed of light" but it doensn't prove anything as there really isn't anything there that is moving faster than c.

I'm not sure if this is a product of 1) a real nutjob scientist, 2) one who is just really bad at communicating, or 3) really BAD science journalism. I suspect that at it's heart, this is just another example of the phase velocity/group velocity difference, but it's hard to tell from the artile. It always seems light a safe bet though, when one sees headlines about "faster than light" signaling...

[LaurenG]

2. This is fascinating.

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

:wow:

[madrchsod]

5. so that`s the secret of limbaugh`s success.......

[LaurenG]

6. Lol

:rofl:

[Ryano42]

4. Open Hailing Frequencies, Captain?

Subspace radio!!!! :)

[pokerfan]

7. For the longest time I thought it was "open alien frequencies."

In my defense I was only seven years old when Trek was first broadcast. 'Hailing' was exactly part of my vocabulary yet.

[Aragorn]

8. this is old news

I heard it 2 weeks ago on the radio.

[Ian David]

9. See? IT WORKS!!! n/t