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Nintendo DS Wireless in Freefall

Posted by timothy on from the that's-pretty-normal dept.

Nicholas Roussos writes "Wired reports about four skydivers who decided to give the Nintendo DS wireless capabilities a try while they were freefalling. 'The four sky divers proved that an ad hoc network set up using the wireless functions of a Nintendo DS works perfectly at distances of nearly 400 feet while falling 120 miles an hour,' states the article."

5 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. The Video by bscience · · Score: 5, Informative
    There is a torrent serving up the video of the PSP and Nintendo DS tests here:

    http://stashbox.fromtheshadows.tv/

    or the actual torrent:

    http://torrents.fromtheshadows.tv/fts_box1.0.avi.t orrent

  2. Re:Boring... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    I would just like to point out that the DS does *NOT* use ad hoc mode at all, but instead, uses infrastructure mode. The first DS into teh game acts as a wireless access point that the other units connect to.

  3. Here comes the science by sunami · · Score: 4, Informative

    I hate to break it to you guys, but so long as the people are moving at the same velocity, there isn't any kind of problem. If all of them had been moving at .999 speed of light (in our point of view), there still wouldn't be a difference, because they are all in the same frame of reference, and they would all measure the speed of light from their point of view to be 3.0x10^8 ms^-1. No doppler effect of the radio waves would be created, and no greater time lag would ensue. It's as if they aren't moving, because according to each other, they aren't!

  4. Re:Galileo would be pleased.. by Jerf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not the theories of Relativity, the Principle. There is a difference. Einstein's theories of Relativity solved an increasingly important conflict between physicists beliefs that the Principle of Relativity was true (an intuitive belief) and their inability to put solid math around the way the Universe works.

    The first chapter of this work should help. Basically, the principle of relativity is that physics is the same for all inertial reference frames; Einstien put that together with the fact that light appears to travel the same speed for all observers. Galilean relativity doesn't work with that; it has other contradictions inherent in it (it can't answer the Zeno paradox, again, see the linked work), but it takes longer to notice. There are other relativity theories that haven't panned out, either.

    Pardon the pedantry, it's intended to be educational.

  5. Re:Einstein would be pleased by Rasta+Prefect · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have a question: If the skydivers were travelling near the speed of light, would this still have worked? (note: Ignore the detail that they'd punch a Wile E. Coyote-esque hole into the planet.)

    Yes. Thats the whole point of relativity. Its just as valid to say that they're still and that the earth is moving near C towards them, in which case why wouldn't it work?

    --
    Why?