-
Asked by to Toby, Sam, Loren, Jo on 23 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
-
Jo Nettleship answered on 23 Jun 2014:
Hi emilyleigh99,
This is not something I know much about as I haven’t done physics since school.
I think it would be interested to think of ways to put a message into a microwave signal – I don’t think this would be easy – and also what would you say?
Jo
-
-
Sam Lear answered on 23 Jun 2014:
Hi emilyleigh99,
This isn’t my area of expertise but I think that it’s generally agreed amongst physicists that it is impossible to send information faster than the speed of light.
Microwaves are used a lot to send messages – that’s how mobile phones send information, for example – but they are still light, so travel at the speed of light.
There are a number of suggested ways in which you could send a message faster than the speed of light (such as making use of an effect called ‘quantum entanglement’, which is very interesting and bizarre, but you should probably ask your physics teacher about that…) but as I said before I think it’s generally accepted that it is not actually possible to do this.
-
Loren Macdonald answered on 23 Jun 2014:
This is not something I know much about as I haven’t done any physics since I was about 15 or 16 (which is longer ago than I like to think!).
However, getting anything beyond the speed of light is extremely difficult. I believe, unless physics has advanced a lot, that generally things get heavier when travelling faster- so you can’t reach the speed of light because the thing gets so heavy that it slows down. I’m not sure the same would count for a microwave but I’m not sure.
Time travel and messages over time like that are quite beyond me but I would think, technically, if your message was slow, it would reach the future. Because, if your message took so long to get there, it would arrive in the future- but that’s just me thinking into this a bit too much!
-
Comments