Remember: These people vote.
So if I put a fan behind a source of light, shouldn’t that make the particles faster?
Yeah but it’s gonna scramble your signal, then send it spinning outwards.
Sort of a serious answer because I’m bored: You’re thinking of speeding up the air when what you should be thinking about is speeding up the waves. But then your waves are reaching you plenty fast already with latency being in the single digit ms range. Not much of a point in trying to accelerate that, really. You won’t notice anyway.
If you feel like your internet connection via Wi-Fi is slow then the bottleneck is probably not with the Wi-Fi part of your network but the Internet Access Point behind it. Or even further down the line.
Now this is based on the assumption that you are in a fairly typical network environment, i.e. using semi-current hardware with moderate, if any, electromagnetic interference in the area. If you’re living right next to a high voltage transformer station and using a router from 2008 then, yes, you’re going to have Wi-Fi performance issues.
But in most cases, people complaining about “slow Wi-Fi” are actually suffering from Internet connectivity issues.
Think of it this way: If you enjoy your McDonald’s from the local franchise but you can only get 100 burgers per hour from them (of course you need MOAR!) then upgrading your 320hp Camaro to a 400hp Mustang is not going to enable you to pick up appreciably more burgers from the drive through in the same amount of time.
Not entirely true.
In an apartment in the middle of a city, noisy neighbours can be a problem.In those cases, it’s best to jump to 5 GHz, and leave the 2.4 band alone.
Except if you have an ECOVACS cleaning robot which refuses to work with modern 5GHz networks. I actually had to install a Wi-Fi bridge to get around that limitation; thankfully, I still had one lying around. Helped me get a better signal for my phone in the bathroom as well.
But thank you for adding this information. Congestion due to interference from other networks (I guess that’s what you meant) can definitely be a factor as well. I guess that’s the problem with the notion of “normal” that I employed rather carelessly.
Sidenote: the fact that your Wi-Fi still works in those conditions at all instead of shutting down goes back to pioneering research done by actress-cum-scientist Hedy Lamarr during WW2. Amazing woman.
There are plenty of things in a normal home that can cause serious signal attenuation (just installed new energy efficient windows? whoops! those IR blocking coatings severely attenuate microwave signals too). Poor AP placement is a very common cause of “slow wifi” and has nothing to do with your internet uplink.
Again, you point out why “normal” is an iffy notion to begin with. Thank you for elaborating instead of just downvoting. 🙂
Failing to fully utilize the existing antenna diversity options on modern routers/APs might be another common cause that comes to mind.
Yes but you have to put a slit in front of it so the wifi waves turn into wifi particles.
Yes, but then it’s slower for your computer to talk back to your Wi-Fi, so it ends up cancelling out
Interestingly, this could be true and you could never find out experimentally iirc.
I watched a veritasium video about the 1 way speed of light vs 2 way that talked about it.
I watched the same video!
I was right about to disagree and type “wait this only applies to light” but then I remembered: radio is light.
Crazy to think about that!
It is nuts. It goes to show how far science goes proving things through deductions rather than direct observation. So much science is done that way.
I think that there would be some infinite energy glitches if it was actually true that light was faster 1 direction than another, so I think the assumption is a good one. But still fun facts
Push-Pull Config
We can streamline this by making the room into 2 small tunnels from the router to the PC. This way there will be less obstacles in the room. But we need to add leafblowers on each side with a boost button.
What if we make the tubes really really small and wrap them in many protective layers to prevent other wind sources from messing with the signal.
At that point why even bother with the air at all, we could just send electrical signals. Or even light.
you could also hook into the router and wireless card of the computer to make each of them turn on the corresponding leaf blower whenever they’re sending something. of course you’d probably have to implement some kind of queuing system so only one blower is active at a time, but it will all be worth it for the speed gains
LOL! Yes, one has to consider this. ZOMG your’s is the best comment!
Le reddit moment tips cap to you sir
This.
Not inherently stupid question; they just don’t know that radio waves don’t travel through air but through space.
they just don’t know that radio waves don’t travel through air but through space
does this mean radio waves can go to mars? if so, why don’t we ride them to mars?
You’d need a very small saddle.
It’s not much of a stupid question even given that - for a refractive medium, speed of light can change with its movement. Though for air it’ll be extremely hard to directly notice; it has n≈1.0003 so speed of light in air is already 0.9997c, and increasing it to, say, 0.9998c would require moving the air at 0.166c.
Stupid laws of nature, making everything cool super hard and expensive!
But air is empty space?! /s
yes but pages will render kinda wavy i use a box fan myself for maximum speed
Yeah, but it evens out since now your messages going back to the router have to swim upstream.
Could this be remedied by sending packets on a second antenna, with a fan blowing in the opposite direction?
Only if the two air streams don’t intersect, otherwise you’ll create a dead zone. Modern signal jammers are actually highly sophisticated fans.
You must never cross the streams
If you had a fan blowing out the window, it could slightly reduce the density of the air in your house, leading to a tiny increase in the speed of light through it, so that would make the waves technically faster, but by a vanishingly small margin
It wouldn’t increase the bitrate of your router at all, so it wouldn’t make a difference, but the waves would be faster
Bitrate wouldn’t change, but it would reduce latency by a tiny amount.
With less matter for the photons to interact with, I assume the WiFi’s SNR would be improved. If fewer data frames need to be retransmitted at the link layer (WiFi), I figure the apparent bitrate at the IP level might actually be improved!
Actually, I would not be shocked if WiFi itself adapts to conditions, e.g. by sending less data per frame with more error correction bits when SNR is already low.
(Not a networking expert, I am just bullshitting.)
There are some stupid questions.
Esp those pushed to devices with the form factor of a remote control, running the official reddit app
Tbf, it’s not like physics stuff is always obvious, especially when dealing with relativity or quantum mechanics. It just feels obvious if you’ve already learned about the research that’s already been done.
It isn’t even remotely intuitive that light should have a max speed that can’t be added to by moving its source relative to other things. Plus, light does interact with matter, but it can only be slowed down by it.
So less a stupid question and more just one that isn’t educated about something.
Yeah yeah, I know. I was mostly just kidding. Everything is magic if you’re ignorant and we shouldn’t shit on people for not knowing something and props to them for asking and seeking knowledge and all that.
But it’s really sad that very basic science like radio waves which are introduced in 5th or 6th grade could be so completely misunderstood.
I remember my 6th grade science class having a lively 15 minute discussion about whether or not rockets can work in space since there’s no air…. We’re looking at videos of rockets working in space and then debating whether or not they do. 🙄
Not everyone went to the same school, and not everyone went to school, for any number of reasons. I first attended a health class in college.
I remember my 6th grade science class having a lively 15 minute discussion about whether or not rockets can work in space since there’s no air…. We’re looking at videos of rockets working in space and then debating whether or not they do. 🙄
This feels a tad different than the person in the screenshot. Screenshot person fundamentally misunderstood how radio waves worked. Meanwhile, 6th grade you absolutely understood how rockets worked, at least to the level of understanding that they need air to work. Because you were right the whole time, those kinds of rockets can’t work in space without air. The slightly absurd solution that you wouldn’t readily know without a deeper understanding of how the rocket is built is that a rocket literally brings its own air with it!
Yeah- you make good points. I think what I was upset about was that we started with a given (they obviously work in space) and then half the class argued they didn’t for a while.
A better question would have been “how can they work since space has no air in space?” which leads to great q & a I think.
Quantum physics is not logical, every other field of physics is! Shame that instead of logic we are taught fucking equations, as if we could look up logical conclusions like equations…
Even less intuitively, the fan would increase the air pressure between the router and receiver, slowing light down slightly. So it would end up (imperceptibly) slowing the signal down.
This is not stupid at all. If Wi-Fi used matter instead of magnetic fields to propagate (like sound waves), a fan would affect it. Understanding magnetic fields is anything but intuitive.
Agreed, it’s just someone trying to learn.
Alternatively I would guess if fans improved the speed we’d have wifi fans throughout the house. Gaming wifi fans that sound like an airplane taking off with blinding LEDs
Imagine…
Not at all in this case though! Or rather, it depends on your perspective.
“Why doesn’t electricity leak out the outlet?” is a good question, if you know nothing about electricity.
“Why doesn’t electricity leak out the outlet?” is a little stupid, if you know a little about electricity.
“Why doesn’t electricity leak out the outlet?” is a great question if you know a bit more about electricity (because it does leak out, it’s just that 50/60Hz doesn’t couple to freespace well unless you have a colossal antenna).
As to this question, light in moving media: https://preprints.opticaopen.org/articles/preprint/Fizeau_Experiment_Investigating_the_Speed_of_Light_in_Moving_Media/25441108?file=45147313
On the contrary, given the premise its a smart observation from an unknownledged person.
“Wifi is waves in the air” is very very wrong but as it appears it’s what this person was thought to believe. Given that they trust this information the conclusion makes perfect sense.
The only “dumb” here is whoever explain wifi like this to them.
So what the post really amounts to is. “I applied actual reasoning to the information i was provided as fact and my conclusion seemed strange, so i will ask on no stupid questions to figure out whats really going on”
More intelligent than the majority of internet users.
“I don’t know, can anyone help me learn?” gets so much respect from me. Incredibly powerful mindset.
it obv goes through the ether
I mean technically the weather influences your ping, since the waves travel slower at higher air pressure
Edit: Accidentally got it the wrong way around
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic but this is not true. Electromagnetic waves travel fastest in a vacuum, so the presence of air would slow it down very slightly and I would expect higher air pressure would slow it down further again only incredibly slightly because the electromagnetic waves would be traveling through a medium less efficient and more different than a vacuum.
Of course I’m making an assumption that you were using wireless signals. For all I know, you could have some weird acoustic link in which case you’d be absolutely right.
Internet via carrier pigeon. A strong headwind will reduce your effective transmission time.
I believe this mode of communication was actually standardized.
They would travel slower at high pressure and high temperature due to more interactions. Low temp and low pressure are the opposite. Sound is faster with high pressure and more complicated on temperature.
Oh, wow. You really triggered them this time.
If it changes the air pressure, changing the refractive index, it will affect how fast the waves will travel. If you put it behind the router blowing towards the computer, does that increase the pressure? Then it would slow down I think. But this would only make a difference for a single wave packet; any real connection sends many packets and would be limited by the frequency of packets sent.
Depends on the direction the fan is facing. If it’s blowing towards you, that increases air pressure in front of it, which means more things for photons to interact with and a lower speed of light, thus slower wifi. Away from you would decrease the pressure and result in faster wifi due to the increased speed of light. Theoretically at least. I don’t think this effect is measurable.
Edit: thinking about it, the electromagnetic noise from a fan motor would likely be worse than the benefit. You might even be able to detect that
I like this question tbh
WiFi is waves in space, not air.
Waves in the electromagnetic field that permeates all of space, along with many other fields with different topologies and particles.
Followup: Can I get a fan that moves space instead of air? I need to make my wifi faster.
Check on Amazon for a “Space fan”.
You can define your fan to be moving space and the pushing of air is the side-effect.
What poster above meant is that wifi is electromagnetic waves, so it does not care whether air is present or not. Air does not significantly hinder the propagation of electromagnetic waves. What you could do to speed up your wifi, in theory, is to fill your living room with argon. Argon has a lower refractive index than air, so the waves can travel faster. The downside is that you won’t be able to breathe.
Followup: So I need to get a fan with this symbol on it: ☢️?
There’s a few on eBay, but the sellers are all Russian and I’m not sure if they’re scams or not.
I guess I’ll look for radiation fan on Amazon.
Build your own fan out of bananas and you have a radiation fan.
K, umm I mean 40 K.
So SCUBA for inside the house breathing while gaming, zoom meeting, etc. That’s totally doable.
SCBA would be enough.
Just get a tube of argon that you can connect from your wifi ap to your device so the waves can travel faster through the tube
Just have a miniature wormhole connect your PC directly to the server
