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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."

6 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Einstein would be pleased by SiliconEntity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In this year of the Einstein centenary, these skydivers have managed to rediscover the Principle of Relativity - that it matters not how fast you are moving, the laws of physics are the same. Indeed, if radio waves failed to propagate for skydivers the entire structure of physics would have to be re-created from scratch.

  2. This is really cool... by Smiffa2001 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...though I'd really hate to try it. I get sucked into "the zone" when gaming and computing so tend to ignore most outside stimuli (feel free to correct spelling, etc.). Hope that my parachute would be automatically opening, otherwise...

  3. What about different speeds? by Kainaw · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If they are all travelling at the same speed - so what? What if one was still and the other was travelling at 400mph? Could they still communicate? I know, they would be too far apart if the moving one went in a straight line. But, what if it went back and forth? The issue is the simple doppler effect. At what point is it unable to handle wireless communications?

    I only ask because I feel that we will eventually have wireless transmitters in all cars to monitor traffic and assist in directing traffic away from congested areas. At what speed do cars lose effective communication with stationary antennas? Cell phones seem to work just fine at 100mph+

    --
    The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
  4. Re:Why should it not work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Exactly, they may be moving at 120MPH in relation to the Earth, but not in relation to each other.

  5. Not... really by gotr00t · · Score: 2, Interesting
    That's only the first part of Einstein's postulates. The other one states that there is a fundamental constant that is absolute for every frame: C, the speed of light. The radio waves that these skydivers were using for their wi-fi connection are EM waves, propagating at speed C.

    It is not surprising that their wireless worked in the least, as to be able to detect any relativistic effect, their frame, determined by gamma=(1-v^2/c^2)^(-1/2) would have to be close to or greater than 1. That would be darn close to the speed of light.

  6. Re:Here comes the science by jridley · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If all of them had been moving at .999 speed of light (in our point of view), there still wouldn't be a difference

    Well, there might have been; some lower frequencies of external source could have been shifted up into a wavelength that would have interfered with their wireless, or sunlight from behind them may have shifted downwards.

    Also, light from in front of them may have shifted into gamma rays or higher and killed them before they managed to get to level 2.