A 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.

But do they carry any information with them?

But do they carry any information with them?

if they do,i can imagine Einstein putting his puzzling smile on his face,whispering in the skies:"you got me!!!"

I used to have a T-shirt with a picture of Einstein dressed as a traffic cop and the caption, "186,000 miles per second isn`t just a good idea. It`s the law."

Current tachyon theory (which postdates Einstein) maintains that ftl particles cannot carry information that can be detected with current technologies.

UPDATE :
Speedy radio waves could also revolutionize the computing industry. Data could be transferred more quickly, and if used in semiconductors, it would mean faster caches and the ability to communicate across separate pieces of silicon nearly instantly.

In the health field, faster than light radio waves could be in extremely targeted chemotherapy, where a patient takes the drugs, and the radio waves are used to activate them very specifically in the area around a tumor, Singleton said.

Source of update: http://www.universetoday.com/2009/06/30/device-makes-radio-waves-travel-faster-than-light/

Current tachyon theory (which postdates Einstein) maintains that ftl particles cannot carry information that can be detected with current technologies.

Jorjor, I went back and reread these articles and they do seem to contradict themselves on this point. Perhaps the scientist are trying to convey that radio waves traveling faster than the speed of light can possibly be functional and benificial without carrying information. More than likely however, the science writer didn't have a clue or just wanted to punch up the story a bit and make it sound better.

I can read Feynman with little problem, but get lost when the math starts getting too thick. However, the work on the accelerated radio is too early to determine whether information can be preserved. It looks as if we'll just have to wait and see. After all, I'm old enough to remember when quarks were indetectible and just a matter of theory. I agree that the writer may have been overly optimistic, and stick with what I said earlier about needing a new technological approach. After all, modern communications all got started with dots and dashes via telegraph.