How to travel faster than the speed of light, the basics

This topic first interested me in my college optics class, where we learned that although no wave can travel faster than light, information carried in waves certainly can, because the speed of the phase group can exceed the speed of wave propagation itself. So there are demonstrably “things” that do travel faster than light. In the world of waveguides and dielectrics (i.e. how waves behave in the real world), we these characteristics in the structures that emerge within superpositions of waves.

The group velocity of the in-phase wavepacket travels faster than the speed of light

The phase is WHERE a waveform starts in its cycle. For example, with sound, the instant you hit the record button, one sound might be at a maximum in its oscillation cycle and another at a minimum. Those acoustic wave oscillations would be out of phase. If they match up, both at a maximum simultaneously, the waves are “in phase” with each other. Their maximums and minimums have to line up, so they must also be the same “width,” of wavelength.

Frequency is cycles per second. Frequency times wavelength is the phase velocity, distance covered if you were riding on one point of the wave, per second. Whereas group velocity is the rate of change of the frequency with respect to the phase change. If you like the equations for each, the best is here.

Information is not carried in uniform waves, but in some property that varies with time. This could be the amplitude, the frequency, or the phase. Often times the frequency is not constant in time.

When a wave travels through media, the phase velocity is different than the group velocity because the phase parameters are time dependent as well. This occurs all over with waves traveling in nonuniform media, that have a frequency dependent density.

Imagine different density liquids percolating through a porous rock with pore sizes than change throughout the direction of travel

When information is sent, like in modern electronics, some characteristics have to be modulated, and are often a superposition of harmonic waves. Harmonic waves are in phase to an extent. The relationship between different harmonized waves in a wave packet can be identified because they form particular patterns (Fourier Series). In the “time domain” or just watching this travel does not show the pattern. But transforming the same travel to the “frequency domain” can paint a different picture. And machines and devices can respond to either.

Put the waves in an envelope, and they’ll spread out or disperse as time has passed.

Information is carried in waves by phase differentiation. The phases carry the information. The frequency content does not contain information. This is just the pitch or the timbre. Even now, commercial voice-to-text can have a hard time if the timbre or pitch of the voice changes, it typically locks onto that.

How do waves not lining up travel faster than the speed of light?

Because the differences create a music of their own. Imagine the difference between an excited stuttered “Wow!” and a nervous, coy “Wow!” of the same pitch. We read the distance between the sound impulses without noticing it to correlate additional information for the social interaction.

The neurophone suppresses the frequency domain and amplifies the time domain. Human speech has a natural time delay which conveys emotion and accent. The time delay in human speech is caused by the vibrations of the speech organs. The vibrations of the larnyx, the nasal, and oral passages is interpreted informatically.

“The neurophone Mk XI processing circuit processes the incoming complex non linear signal waveform, and amplifies the non linearities thus increasing the timing recognition pattern of the signal.” – Flanagan

Read about how Patrick Flanagan’s Neurophone exploited these wave properties so humans could learn “faster than the speed of light”.