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Comment by BMc2020 | Hacker News Reader

BMc2020

terahertz waves, which are smaller and travel much faster than radio waves.

Well raise my rent.

Talk about burying the lede. We've discovered faster-than-light communication... and we're using it to make tamper-proof ID tags.

It isn't faster than light, it's just faster light!

Do I have to repolarize my shield emitters? Or ypuld that uave some inwanted effects the EPs grid or warp core? Asking for a friend.

I literally gasped after reading the synopsis. It is such an incredible idea, that seems strangely (and probably wildly incorrectly) simple.

Maybe they mean FM waves by "radio" ? (which would then imply, "FM waves" versus "terahertz waves")

But I agree it sounds funny. A bit like, "we found faster than electromagnetic waves: we are using light"

They probably mean faster as in transmitting data more quickly than with lower frequency. The EMR travels at the same speed, but you get more throughput.

It isn't uncommon to use verbiage where speed is associated with frequency rather than the speed at which a wave propagates across a distance. I'm not saying we should say things this way, but that it is not uncommon. (Consider the audience. It is the general public who does not have such well founded notions. Again, not that they shouldn't, but here we are)

The problem is that this serves to amplify ignorance because someone is going to think waves travel at different speeds

But waves do travel at different speeds. In fact, different frequencies travel at different rates in different media. Only the speed of light __in a vacuum__ is constant. Which is pretty rare. So rare that even space doesn't have a pure vacuum, though 1 hydrogen atom per meter is pretty close if you ask me.

But I did notice the pun.

It's really all about the frequency of puns

> someone is going to think waves travel at different speeds

That's a good thing, right[1]?

Something about "the one thing all models have in common..." comes to mind.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_factor

There's nothing wrong with saying that blue light is faster than red light, in context, it obviously means the frequency. It might be better to specify, but in many contexts that isn't necessary.

But you can't say that blue light travels faster than red light, because that's obviously wrong.

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