Take for example, fiber optics. The idea behind fiber optics is not that light can store information and then send it from one node to another, but rather that the light's presence (or lack there of) can represent a number in binary.

Couldn't the same idea be applied to radio waves, allowing us to send information faster than fiber optics allows us, and beyond that, we can send it through space, rather than only in network cables?

You sir are not a dreamer you are a visionary. I agree with your line of thinking. I have an explanation of why this device works as it does. You may be interested in seeing it. Please go to this Internet site, Super Relativity.org. At this site read the article How to Build a Warp Drive using SR Theory. It will explain the mechanics of the discovery talked about in the article above. It discusses the principle idea of what I call the Slip Wave Field.

Quantum computers exploit nonlocality of quantum entanglements in a related way to speed up the processing of information. The architype is the controlled-NOT gate which can process entangled quantum bits.

Lawrence B. Crowell

Phase terms can travel faster than light. Even stranger quantum entanglements can exist simultaneously. Two charged and spinning particles in an entangled states may be separated by a huge distance. If one particle is in a region with a magnetic field that particle will exhibit a precession. This is the basis of MRI. Now the other particle far removed and with no magnetic field will also precess!

Can there be a speed up of information because a phase travels faster than light? Surprisingly yes, but under certain conditions. This is the basis for quantum computers, where the entanglement of states can quantum compute in a log(time) compared to a classical computer. There is a hitch though. There has to be a classical signal transmitted to read the output of the quantum computation.

With the case of the laser pointer suppose it points at various spots on the moon. These are specific little pulses of codes and the pointer hits detectors so there is no speed of light connection between them. Each of these little detectors then processes the information and then communicates to some "hub." In that sense you can actually have a faster communication of information. Yet it has to be remembered that no information actually travels faster than light.

Lawrence B. Crowell

I can't believe I really just typed that…

Dreaming is good! It can lead you to very exciting things. And space travel would, indeed, be a great thing.

The problem here is, as CinIN already states, SR (special relativity) is proven without any doubts. Especially particle physics experiments have shown its effects to be real. Even such a different theory like quantum mechanics relies on SR; you need SR to achieve the correct explanation of electrons in an atom – and this has been proven, too! We must face it: SR is right and faster-than-light-travel is not possible in the conventional way.
Btw: Theoretically the warp-drive of Enterprise could work! One major problem could be to put thirty solar masses into the space ship and keep it from collapsing into a black hole. But as a professor once stated: "Theoretically it works. How to build it is up to the engeneers!"

I'm all for dreaming but it has been determined experimentally that a particle moving at a velocity close to the speed of light is much more massive than one at a lower velocity. So the closer you get to c the more massive it becomes and the more energy it takes to go faster until takes infinite energy as you get infinitely close to c.

Face it, Relativity describes the way the universe works.

I'm not going to debate any of the science in regards to this with anyone here…I barely understand any of Einstein's theories to begin with. I will say however that as I understand it, while Einstein was certainly right about most things, as far as I know this concept about travel and light is still a theory…it has NOT been conclusively proven beyond a shadow of a doubt yet. That said, we can't allow ourselves to fall victim to a belief that it's simply "not possible". For years the "experts" swore up and down that the Earth was flat. For many more years most folks, including the experts thought it was impossible for "man to fly" let alone reach the moon…until someone proved them wrong.

If we give up the effort based on the belief that it's not possible, we may be sacrificing something truly great. Further, even if it turns out that it's not possible, what other truly wonderful things could be discovered in the attempt…things that may not be discovered if we simply "give up because it's not possible".

Anyways, I'm sure this isn't going to change the opinion of any of the experts who are so positive that faster than light travel isn't possible…they have gotten so wrapped up in their facts, science and mathematics that they have forgotten how to dream. For the rest of you though, please don't give up "the dream" simply because others don't think it's possible. We have to dream of the possibilities before we can ever achieve them! Hopefully one day someone will be able to prove the experts, including Einstein wrong.

Just some thoughts from a dreamer

"But it is possible to find, and even make, weirdly non-linear media for light, and radio-waves.
If you can make nc!"

should read:

"If you can make n smaller than 1, then V larger than c!"

Light in ordinary media does not behave that way, it is 'linear'; phase and group speeds are equal (= c in vacuum, = c/n in a medium where n is the refraction index of that medium; n>1).
But it is possible to find, and even make, weirdly non-linear media for light, and radio-waves.
If you can make nc!
This is then just for phase velocity, which cannot carry information: only the group of waves does.

The system described in this article does just that: by modifying its properties along with the passing wave, it interacts with the wave in a very non-linear way.

Two more things about relativity.
1- Of course, as just any other physics theory, it is only valid within its domain of tested verification, to the extent of the precision of the best observations, and until otherwise proved ('falsified'). It may happen, and it may not.

Until it happens, relativity is a good tool to understand the place we live, but it is not very intuitive.

2- The notion that 'it is not possible to go faster than light' is over-simplified, and misses the point. It tends to lead to meaningless 'what-ifs'.
c is much more than 'the speed of light': it is the 'space-time constant', the ratio between time and space (which relativity states are related, and not independent as our intuition would have it).

Light happens to travel at c (in a vacuum), because c is also a ratio between electrical and magnetic properties of vacuum, because light happens to be electro-magnetic waves (propagating vibrations of the electric and magnetic fields, just like vibrations of the surface of water propagates) and because electric and magnetic fields are space- and time-derived from each other (this was stated by JC Maxwell).

(btw, gravity probably also travels at c, but this has not been observed yet.)

Einstein's idea is that c is a constant for all observers.
This is much deeper, and in fact much more surprising, than the better-known idea of 'no faster than c'.
Suppose you drive a spaceship at c/4, heading for the klingon ship in front. That ship is travelling towards you at c/2. Both ships fire their laser cannons.
Q: What will each of you, as well an an innocent bystander, measure for the speed of these rays of doom?
A: c! All of you, for both rays of light!
And not c+c/2, c-c/2, c+c/4, c-c/4 you would observe in a newtonian universe.
c is really constant.

What this actually means, is that speed is a very, very different thing from the notion we have of it.
All that exists is a link between time and space, which is different for each observer.
This link means that, among other things, V>c is not only impossible, but physically meaningless, for any observer.
Think of it as a sort of rotation between observers, such as one observer's 'time' becomes mingled with another's 'space'.

Sorry, that was long…

Really, so it´s possible to send information faster than speed of light?
As far as I know (and understood about the article) it breaks some known physical laws, doesnt it? I will read the paper and than I post what I find out…

No, it wouldn't help to imagine a faster process, then that simply would be "light". Einstein realized that there must be a fastest signal, and that it is tied into how space and time works. It is rather easy to identify that fields that have infinite range (which means their interactions are mediated by massless particles: EM, gravity) transmit at this speed. ["rather easy" reads, as usual, as: "I'm sure I have seen this beautiful argument somewhere somewhen, but I can't remember or reconstruct it." ]

@ Dave:

Unfortunately I dunno about such a good article. But I have one old link somewhere to an article how superluminal signals in general would destabilize your typical gauge field.

Then we have computer scientist Scott Aaronson's testable hypothesis against time travel, which would work against superluminal signaling too. If such beasts exist they could be used to deflate computer science tower of algorithmic difficulty. In other words, we would instantly know everything. We don't, so they don't (exist).

That type of gedanken experiment reminds me of that old maxim, roughly and generally "space exists so that not everything happens here, and time exists so it doesn't all happen to me". I recently saw it attributed to Einstein, which if true would be a delicious happenstance.

Note that the paper is from -04, which means that the research has emptied out the possibilities of their setup. Since the research isn't interesting they are probably trying to wake interest by bloviating on technological possibilities, which in turn also seems to have awoken little interest.

I see that many have anticipated much of the rest of my kvetch on this.

This article is very confusing as written.

Greg, they are trying to shuffle the cards fast. First, as CEB notes you can yourself recreate such signal sweeps. I don't think it is meaningful to speak about the apparent speed or phase of the wavefront since you, the observer, is recronstructing global information, and elsewhere. There is no local observer! So no break with relativity, but also no meaningful way of discussing this.

Second, AFAIU these types of phenomena is often seen in astronomy too, where for example jets seen at an angle seems to travel superluminally. The difference is, I think, that no astronomer would term it "superluminal"?!

As for technological possibilities, it is true that electrical signals in narrow conductors limit signaling and global clock reconstructions over large circuit boards. Even in a free conductor a voltage signal would go with 2/3 of light speed due to vacuum inductance. This is why optic signaling is tried, with (directed signaling) or without fiber (omni-directional signaling).

What these researcher have observed is a narrow lobe 1/R field, which is reminiscent of the near field behavior. For comparison a "wide" mono-lobe (spherical field) displays the well known 1/R^2 behavior.

If it is an extended near field, which by all means is an interesting phenomena by itself, I doubt that it can be used for fast communication. Near fields close to an antenna by definition hasn't yet coupled the electric and magnetic field. There are thus no real photons (coupled E and M field), only virtual non-observable ones and little energy transfered (thus the 1/R behavior). Signals would look different at different positions and times, and hopeless to decode.

But even if it is instead a halfway house to a transmitted signal akin to a narrow laser "lobe" (ideally no energy leak with R at all) it can never be as effective or easy to make.

[The reason a wide near field effect would be interesting is IMO that _that_ probably has technological applications. Near field microscopy/pattern transfer has resolution way below the wavelength of the used light. If so, this is then perhaps the only thing the press release/article gets right - perhaps these things, by stacking energy faster than it normally dissipates in confined directions, can achieve superior radio/chemotherapy.]

Can anyone help me find that article? Parts of it got math-y, but it was a very good description of the problem posed by FTL information transfer.

We are not the center of time any more than we are the center of the universe.

Take a laser pointer, and point it at the moon.
Next, swing the laser so it traverses the moon in about a 1/100 of a second. (that's equivalent to about one complete revolution of your hand every 3 seconds).

The spot of the laser pointer is moving across the lunar landscape at approximately the speed of light!

Want to go faster? either swing your arm faster, or aim for Mars…

Just like in this device, no information is transmitted from one side of the moon to the other.

(Just thought of another – if you pre-program the audience, you can make a stadium wave move faster than the speed of light too!)

Ben

It's existence could be thought of as providing information – i.e. Does this radio wave exist? > I can detect it > Yes it does. > OK – that provides me with information.

However, what we are interested in here is the transmission of non-random information from one place to another. To do this, you have to modulate the signal somehow to allow the wave to carry information. Here it gets technical, but suffice it to say that the modulated wave packet travels more slowly than the phase velocity of the wave in question.

It gets very involved with a lot of subtle points. It confuses and trips up many an intelligent physicist. I certainly don't too much beyond the basics…