The gravity radio

摘要

It looks like a pile of rubbish. As I inspect the equipment on the floor of his office, Raymond Chiao laughs. "I'm not a very good experimentalist," he says. We are looking at two paint cans, some bits of wood and a lot of polystyrene cups. This experimental detritus, languishing in a battered cardboard box, is the disassembled components of a "gravity radio". If it weren't for his impressive track record in experimental physics, I'd be tempted to believe Chiao's assessment of his skills. But this is the physicist who demonstrated that photons can tunnel through materials at speeds greater than the speed of light, a remarkable experimental feat that has had wide-ranging implications. So how come his latest attempt to create cutting-edge science has us laughing?