A 100-year-old physics problem has been solved

a reply to: zatara

Yup, I would think so.

I saw a triangle shaped craft, sliding along all silent one night, when it got between me and the moon, it shimmered then I could see the moon through it! I could see the three lights below but no air frame, just the moon and a couple wispy clouds. Meanwhile, the craft circled around the city doing laps.

This "announcement" seems to be that functional technology slowly making it from the lab to civilian land (going "gray" from "black project" land). That's my best guess anyhow. Which means there are other applications they want/need even more.

If you build it, they will come

Or in this case, if you explain how to do it, somebody will come along and try to make a better one, a cheaper one, or in this case, one without an external magnetic field.

Recap: EM frequencies were thought to follow "Lorentz reciprocity" were the waves go in two directions. When caught in a wave guide, they thought it was time locked because all examples showed wave degradation over time. Then, in OP, somebody dared ask, "Is that really true?" They devised an asymmetrical wave guide and applied an external magnetic field and found they could "freeze" the wave from travelling both directions and follow Lorentz reciprocity. They effectively figured out to "break Lorentz reciprocity" and hold, theoretically, EM waves in asymmetrical guides with no degradation. As was pointed out, like Scotty in the tractor beam loop!

Most electronic and photonic structures follow a fundamental characteristic called Lorentz reciprocity, which require waves to travel the same way for both forward and reverse directions. Lorentz reciprocity, because it transmits signals in both directions, can inject noise into circuits and damage devices such as lasers. Scientists know that breaking reciprocity and symmetry by manipulating waves could result in more stable, scalable, and broadband non-reciprocal circuits and devices.

A typical method to breaking Lorentz reciprocity in radar microwave transmitters is by using an external magnetic field, which require greater power consumption. Nonmagnetic alternatives can do the same job, albeit with far less efficiency. For instance, a single nonlinear resonator – a common feature of nonlinear isolators – must sacrifice transmission efficiency to transmit over a broad bandwidth.

"We theoretically show, and then experimentally demonstrate using a microwave circuit, that the combination of one Fano and one Lorentzian nonlinear resonator, and a suitable delay line between them, can provide unitary transmission, infinite isolation, broad bandwidth and broad isolation intensity range," wrote Alù and co-authors Dimitrios L. Sounas and Jason Soric in Nature Electronics.

"We also show that a larger number of resonators can be used to further increase the isolation intensity range without diminishing the other metrics of the device," they added.

The device works at microwave frequencies, but can be applied to optical applications, as well.

RFGlobalNet.com, Feb. 27, 2018 - Breaking Lorentz Reciprocity With Broadband Passive Isolators.

How is that for progress?!! June 2017 to Feb. 2018, to go from, "Look what we can do" to, "We did the same thing theoretically but without the external magnetic field. And we also demonstrated it too!"

Since EM waves are well known entities, all you need to do is demo it in one part of the spectrum, then apply your historical knowledge to other portions of the spectrum!

This could probably be applied to the nano-level of material engineering (which seems to be where we are headed). With Terahertz communication is a hot topic of study with the dreams of switching to faster, and smaller, communication standard (maybe even the much hyped, "internet of things"), these breakthroughs seem like perfect timing.

a reply to: TEOTWAWKIAIFF

Instant transmission? XD

a reply to: chr0naut

They seek death and shall find it not. Where the worm dieth not,and the fire is not quenched.

Ray Kurtzweil approved.