There are some stupid questions.
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 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.
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. 🙄
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!
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.
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
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.
which refuses to work with modern 5GHz networks.
Companies that make IoT devices do this so they can save a bit of money. It lets them use lower end, cheaper wifi chips (or left over older-generation chips that they can buy at a discount). I’m not really a hardware person but apparently 2.4Ghz wifi radios are a lot simpler than 5Ghz ones. Apparently they’re also $2-$3 cheaper which adds up when you’re producing a lot of units.
Also, the 5Ghz band differs per country. For example, some channels are authorized in the USA but not in Europe. Some companies stick to 2.4Ghz to avoid having to make anything region-specific.
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.
Yes, but the tailwind becomes a headwind on the way back to the router so you won’t see any actual speed changes. Putting a fan on both ends will cancel each other out too.
You need to change all the gaseous air out for either liquid or a solid as waves propagate faster through them. You should start with filling your house with liquid oxygen as a nice half step so you still have something to breathe easily, as solids are a bit more tricky.
The general idea is correct, but since we’re dealing with electronagnetic waves, they travel slower in any medium. So pumping out all the air of the room would technically make your wifi faster.
Liquid oxygen has (I think) a refractive index of about 1.2, so it would make the signals 20% slower (still very fast)
Dude waited 11 months of lurking and not posting or commenting anything, and breaks their silence with that attractive string of knowledge. I’ve got mad respect for them.
Remember: These people vote.
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.
