Why do people say radio frequencies travel at light speed?
They don’t travel at all, when you push to talk its instantly, no traveling
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answers:
RealPro say: Seriously have you seen the ping in Asian servers? This is not something to joke about.
The sad reality is, once we truly become a space faring species, you will never be able to play fast paced games with your buddy on Mars.
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John P say: Indeed on Earth the distances are generally so short, just a few hundreds or thousands of miles, that radio seems truly "instantaneous" when its waves move at 186,000 miles every second.
Just remember that light take over 8 minutes to travel from the Sun to the Earth.
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Vaman say: It is the property of the medium and nothing to do with the wave.
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Max say: Incorrect. Radiofrequencies are radio waves, which are photons. Photons consist of the Electromagnetic Spectrum- from Radio, Microwaves, Infrared, Visible light, Ultraviolet, X-Ray and Gamma ray. They are in different classes because they are in different frequencies and have different uses. However they are still photons, and still all travel at lightspeed, regardless of frequency. So it really isn't instant, it just appears that way because lightspeed is so fast.
In comparison to other galaxies, it is actually extremely slow. A supernova detected in 2006, that we had seen as a star all along, had happened 238 million years ago. We had been viewing light tha had come out of it a long time ago and had still been travelling long after the supernova.
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Zirp say: They don't. They say radio-WAVES and signals travel at that speed
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MysteryGuy say: I think they just mean they go really fast.
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Jeffrey K say: Its not instant. Radio waves take time to get from transmitter to receiver. They go at 186000 miles per sec. This lag is very noticeable for astronauts on the moon. It takes 1.3 sec for the signal to get to the moon and 1.3 sec for the reply to get back to earth.
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tentofield say: Light speed is 300,000km a second. The distance your radio signal travels is so small by comparison that the time delay seems to be instantaneous. The radio signal from the New Horizons spacecraft that recently photographed Pluto and more recently Ultima Thule takes over six hours to get to Earth.
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nyphdinmd say: Yeah - no. It seems instantly because the other person is relatively close by speed of light standards. Let s say your buddy is 100 miles away. Ignoring latency times as your cell signal is passed from tower to tower, it takes light (electromagnetic wave) about 0.5 milliseconds to go from you to him. Your brain doens t even notice that time delay - it looks instantaneous to you. However, if your friend we on the moon (1.3 light seconds away) you would not see the communication as instantaneous. You would talk and then wait for at least 1.2 seconds for your friend s reply.
Maxwell s theory of electromagnetism shows that all electromagnetic waves - RF, light, x-rays, gamma rays - travel at the same speed in any given medium. In vacuum, they all travel at 3x10^8 m/s or 186,000 miles/sec. This has been experimentally demonstrated time and time again.
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say: Failed basic science class , you did. So sad
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say: They just want to promote their radio station.
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I don't think so say: Back in the 70s and early 80s before the planet was crisscrossed with fiber optic cables, it was quite apparent that radio waves are not instantaneous on a long distance phone call that was routed via a satellite. There was an obvious delay while the signal traveled the 44,000 miles up and back from the satellite.
The closest thing now would probably be the horrible lag that you get from satellite internet. Just try playing your first person shooter game on one of those.
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Henry say: Yes. Light comes from it's storage area. God brings it out. It is there until it collides with darkness.
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Bill-M say: When you push to talk it is instantly, Because Radio waves DO travel at the Speed of Light. Try adding some distance between you and the Receiver.
Like going to Mars for Instance. the minimum delay of around 4 minutes and the maximum of around 24 minutes
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Robert say: Its instant
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say: Well they say that for a reason.
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