55 points

There are some stupid questions.

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1 point

Oh, wow. You really triggered them this time.

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13 points

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.

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6 points

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…

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16 points
*

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.

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5 points

“I don’t know, can anyone help me learn?” gets so much respect from me. Incredibly powerful mindset.

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2 points

it obv goes through the ether

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3 points
*

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

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10 points

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.

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6 points

Internet via carrier pigeon. A strong headwind will reduce your effective transmission time.

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2 points
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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.

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1 point

Esp those pushed to devices with the form factor of a remote control, running the official reddit app

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4 points
*

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

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68 points

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.

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12 points
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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. 🙄

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3 points
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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!

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1 point

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.

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2 points

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…

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2 points

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.

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Not gonna lie, I thought about that, but I didn’t wanna risk sounding stupid, so I just google it instead of posting it on a forum. Luckily I didn’t actually make a forum post.

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13 points

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

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2 points

Bitrate wouldn’t change, but it would reduce latency by a tiny amount.

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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.)

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16 points

Not inherently stupid question; they just don’t know that radio waves don’t travel through air but through space.

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5 points

But air is empty space?! /s

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2 points

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?

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1 point

You’d need a very small saddle.

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1 point

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.

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121 points

yes but pages will render kinda wavy i use a box fan myself for maximum speed

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