Magnetic fields travel faster than light?

[roid]

did this article just say that magnetic fields can move faster than light?

...
Just like the people in a \"wave\" - where individual fans stand up to make a rapidly moving wave around a football stadium - the individual electrons and nuclei do not themselves move faster than the speed of light, but the disturbance they create can easily exceed it.

In a pulsar, these conditions are replicated by the rotation of the magnetic field of the rapidly spinning neutron star. Only a few hundred miles out from the core, this magnetic field swings through the plasma surrounding the star faster than the speed of light, creating the superluminal disturbance that emits the intense pulses of light.
...

http://www.lamonitor.com/articles/2007/ ... news02.txt

i didn't know magnetic fields could travel faster than light. i thought they were like gravitons or something - some kindof elementary particle whatshewhozit thingymabob and could not travel faster than light.

Is that true that magnetic fields can travel faster than light? I'm amazed i havn't heard of this before. Why can we not use it to communicate (ie: move something such as data) faster than light... or maybe that's what the article is suggesting.

[Flabby Chick]

I reckon limits are limited to what we know.

We are in the 'light' phase at the moment. When we're all dead and gone...well! Galileo would have creamed at the binoculars in your back pocket wouldn't he?

[Sirius]

Odd. Was fairly sure myself that since light is an electromagnetic phenomenon, it travelled about as fast as anything could go. Magnetic pulses included.

[Gekko71]

Interesting. After reading the article, I don't think they're saying that a magnetic feild moves that fast.

Admittedly, my physics is very rusty, but from my understanding, what they are saying is that moving particles of matter (ie: Photons and Electrons) - while not moving faster than the speed of light themselves - can create a \"disturbance\" through their movement, that DOES move faster than the speed of light. The article also says they have measured this effect in a laboratory.

It makes a certain sense to me. Electrons and Protons are both matter, but they are matter with an electical charge (-ve & +ve respectively). When these particles with matter and mass move, because they take their electrical charge with them, they create mini 'pockets' of +ve, -ve and neutral (or no) electical charge.

As you all know, whenever you create a +ve or -ve electical charge, you affect the other charged particles in the immediate area. Once an electron has moved for example, you create an impetus for the electron next to it to move.

That second electron will either move into the place where the previous electron was to compensate for the sudden lack of negative charge in that space, or it may move away from the first electron (they are both negatively charged, and thus might repel each other like the similar poles of two magnets). I think what they are saying is that this \"impetus\" or \"desire to move\" for an electron / Proton, moves faster than the Electrons / Protons in question do themselves.

I thnik I got all that right (as I said, my physics is very rusty). Is anyone here better informed than me and able to shed some more light on what is a facinating new idea?

[Gekko71]

i didn't know magnetic fields could travel faster than light. i thought they were like gravitons or something - some kindof elementary particle whatshewhozit thingymabob.

As I understand it Roid, a magnetic field has no mass of it's own.

Each electron has a -ve charge that it can't get rid of, ditto for protons with their +ve charge.

When you lump a lot of electrons or protons together (which DO have mass) you effectivly combine the sum of their +ve or -ve charges together. The sum of these combined -ve \\ +ve forces is what makes up the electromagnetic field. As the field itself HAS NO MASS therefore it is possible (in theory) for an electromagnetic field to move faster than light (assuming my earlier comment is wrong and EM fileds CAN move that fast).

Einstein said that no MATTER (ie nothing with mass) could travel faster than light. EM fields have no mass - therefore they may not constrained by this rule.

...then again, that could all be total codswallop!

[TIGERassault]

If I understand correctly, saying that it's faster than light isn't quite correct. It's really more of a 'the rate that it takes an electron X distance away to be effected by a magnetic field is greater than the rate it takes light to travel the same distance'.
Actually, that does sound a lot like a definition for speed, but the thing is that barely anything's actually moving...
Err...
I guess the easiest way to explain it is that a magnetic field isn't a 'thing', but more of a name given to a certain phenonomom.(sp?)

Although I would have imagined that a magnetic field would really be instant, and all electrons in the field would be effected all at the same time. Well, the more you know...

[Space-Invader Klein]

So to say there is a 4th dimension where things work differently at that point, and we're able to affect our 3Dimensions of 'concrete understanding ' with a 'phenonemon' that we are able to create with our knowledge of current physics. Or who's to say it is a phenonemon, or any strange occurence, at all. The fact that we don't understand it as of now doesn't mean its unnatural. If aliens are out there, would you consider them unnatural? They would have occured on their own, or at 'Nature's Will.' There are many normal things out there, we're just to crazy to understand it... A Magnetic field IS a thing, I can feel it, It affects me, its REAL and not just a visual effect set to fool my eyes. But add Plasmonics into the idea, and you have a cloaking device, and metamatter machine, maybe a warp drive like D][! And it would fool my eyes into how reality works, but until that point, lets not say that things we don't understand, Aren't 'Things'....

A thought is a thing, Do you suppose it has power to influence the immediate/far area surrounding a thought in a physical sense? You KNOW that THAT would travel way faster than anything we've allready imagined... No pun intended....

[Capm]

Well, we all know that the only thing faster than light is the rate at which John Ratzenberger comes up with BS to yack about to make himself look smarter than he is.

[Top Gun]

Some of the discussion in here would probably be aided by reading a bit about the difference between phase velocity and group velocity in an electromagnetic context. However, as far as I can tell, that isn't exactly what this article is talking about. If you take a look at the diagram in this article, you can see that pulsars emit a \"beam\" of electromagnetic radiation that's distinct from its axis of rotation; if this beam happens to be aligned with Earth, we can observe the \"lighthouse effect\" that first gave pulsars their name. Anyways, once you get a few hundred kilometers out from the pulsar, when this beam sweeps out angularly through the surrounding supernova remnant material, its tangential component is propagating faster than the speed of light. It's the same principle as swinging a ball on a string around your head; while the tangential speed of a spot on the string close to you may be relatively low, the speed of the ball at the end of the string may be quite high, and both points share the same angular velocity. The particles themselves aren't moving faster than c, but the changing magnetic field that drives their response is \"sweeping\" past them at superluminal speeds. That's what I'm getting out of the article, at any rate.

[Duper]

gekko, remember they are talking about pure magnetics and not electro-magnetics.

[Canuck]

This article has some great information;
http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw105.html

In a Microwave Guide the math shows the electrons moving faster than C, but they really aren't.

Still some very interesting Science, and it shows that we still have allot to learn.

[Topher]

Einstein said that no MATTER (ie nothing with mass) could travel faster than light.

I believe that's incorrect. It is actually a much stronger limitation: no information can travel faster than the speed of light.

This would violate causality: you could become aware of something before it actually happened.

Wouldn't it be cool if we could send a space probe to the nearest star, and using "magnetic fields" which travel faster than the speed of light, get information back faster than it would take the radio waves or the light from the star?

We could also build faster computers and internet pipes as it would take less time for the information to travel between points.

Finally, light doesn't have mass, yet it is bound by the speed of light (duh), thus mass is not a requirement.

[TIGERassault]

A thought is a thing,

I'd say it wouldn't be!
And yes, perhaps 'phenonomom' was a bad coice for a word to describe it.

This would violate causality: you could become aware of something before it actually happened.

There we have it folks! Topher believes that if something goes really really fast, it goes back in time!
*bangs head on keyboard*

In other news, I actually believe that time doesn't move in one direction only, and that it would be possible to send information into the past.
Which would give it a, um... negative speed? Gee, that would mean it would be slower than a stationary rock!

[Topher]

This would violate causality: you could become aware of something before it actually happened.

There we have it folks! Topher believes that if something goes really really fast, it goes back in time!
*bangs head on keyboard*

Wikipedia owns you.

Think of it this way: I'm looking at a clock while I'm moving backwards away from it. As I move faster, the hands will look to slow down. When I hit the speed of light, no other light is able to reach my eyes and thus the clock stops. If I could move faster than light, I would be receiving light from a point in the past, the clock hands would be moving backwards.

[Canuck]

Technically if you could stop a photon in a container, the angular energy in the photon no longer exists and the box with the photon would show an increase in mass;


Problem is every angle is right or wrong depending on who's math you want to use. I believe there are particles smaller and faster than light, we just don't have the equipment to see it. Also I'm pretty sure there are some undiscovered elements out there that perhaps supply the conditions to allow all sorts of \"impossible things to happen\". Think about what you could do with a chunk of a Neutron Star.

Sadly us monkeys would see just how big of a bang and how many of us and others we could kill rather than solve our energy problems or solve food shortages.

P.S. This thread rocks

[Krom]

The problem with looking for something that is faster than light is the same as trying to use sonar to to find something that is faster than sound. If there were something traveling faster than light, what would we who can only detect light perceive it as? A bright flash like a visible light version of a sonic boom? The universe could be a soup of FTL particles that we simply have no means of detecting. Something that moves FTL obviously doesn't have to obey the same set of rules that apply to all visible things.

[roid]

How i've considered radiation is like a waterhose.

You can hold a waterhose and spin around in circles, looking top down there will be a spiral of water comming out from you. If we are blind and the only way we can \"see\" is by feeling that water hit our face, then we can't \"feel\" the spiral - as far as we're concerned the hose is facing us at the exact moment we are hit in the face by water. But it's not - that water isn't instant - it takes time for that water to travel from the hose to your face, and by the time the water hits you the hose is actually facing somewhere else. a spiral.

But do magnetic fields operate in the same way? When i think of magnetic fields i think of huge lines traveling in large arcs from pole to pole. When a magnet spins, don't these magnetic lines warp into spirals like the water from the spinning hose? The original article is reading to me like they don't - but is this correct, or are they just like normal radiation?

I get the whole angular velocity thing, how as the ends of a spinning twig get closer to C they get heavier and heavier and harder and harder to spin faster and will never reach C.

Radiation is limited to C, yeah.
Gravitons are limited to C, ok.
But magnetic fields i don't understand.

I suppose i should have paid more attention to why they call it ElectroMAGNETIC radiation.

[Gekko71]

gekko, remember they are talking about pure magnetics and not electro-magnetics.

Good point Duper - (as I said my physics is pretty rusty ).

I do vaguely remember their being a distinction between the two - but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Is it that Electro-magnetic fields are caused by the presence (or absense) of charged particles and pure magnetics are not? Help me out here.

[Duper]

electromagnetics is energy tranference via electrons.

Magnetic fields, such as a magnet gives off or a planet is well... a field. As I understand, the origin of magnetic fields isn't exactly understood. There are many theories and quantum physics is getting closer, but there is still some ground to cover.

[Gekko71]

electromagnetics is energy tranference via electrons.

Magnetic fields, such as a magnet gives off or a planet is well... a field. As I understand, the origin of magnetic fields isn't exactly understood. There are many theories and quantum physics is getting closer, but there is still some ground to cover.

Thanks for that . But doesn't an individual electron / Proton have an assoicated magnetic field with it? Cause as I understand it, only mass can generate either an electrical or a magnetic field (...or be capable of generating a gravitational pull at that.) It would have to be this way logically I think, otherwise how else could an electro-magnet operate?

...man - deep converations today folks - I like it!~

[Canuck]

Energy has mass

There are several ways to generate magnetic fields with various shapes and spins. There's also magnetic and current flow in inductors ELI the ICE Man is a mnemonic we use in Electronics to illustrate phase angles and current/voltage relationships in inductors and capacitors. On that page is a link to a great diagram that explains what we know about electromagnetic physics, etc. This will help illustrate a little bit of what is being discussed here. However bending space and time adds a bit more math and some really serious thought, and I'm sure a ton of energy.

[Pandora]

Think of it this way: I'm looking at a clock while I'm moving backwards away from it. As I move faster, the hands will look to slow down. When I hit the speed of light, no other light is able to reach my eyes and thus the clock stops. If I could move faster than light, I would be receiving light from a point in the past, the clock hands would be moving backwards.

Great! That was one of the simplest/clearest explanations of the phenomenon I have heard so far!

[woodchip]

Technically if you could stop a photon in a container, the angular energy in the photon no longer exists and the box with the photon would show an increase in mass;

Actually Canuck, they have almost stopped light:

"An entirely new state of matter, first observed four years ago, has made this possible. When atoms become packed super-closely together at super-low temperatures and super-high vacuum, they lose their identity as individual particles and act like a single super- atom with characteristics similar to a laser.

Such an exotic medium can be engineered to slow a light beam 20 million-fold from 186,282 miles a second to a pokey 38 miles an hour."


http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999 ... light.html

[Topher]

Think of it this way: I'm looking at a clock while I'm moving backwards away from it. As I move faster, the hands will look to slow down. When I hit the speed of light, no other light is able to reach my eyes and thus the clock stops. If I could move faster than light, I would be receiving light from a point in the past, the clock hands would be moving backwards.

Great! That was one of the simplest/clearest explanations of the phenomenon I have heard so far!

Woohoo!! Watching Nova has finally paid off!

[Bet51987]

Think of it this way: I'm looking at a clock while I'm moving backwards away from it. As I move faster, the hands will look to slow down.

That was exactly the scenario Einstein encountered when he was going home from work. When he was looking at that clock tower from the trolley, he had his answer.

I would have given 10 years of my life just to be sitting next to him.

Bee

[Foil]

The particles themselves aren't moving faster than c, but the changing magnetic field that drives their response is "sweeping" past them at superluminal speeds. That's what I'm getting out of the article, at any rate.

That was my understanding, as well.

I would explain it something like this (a poor analogy, but I think it makes the point):

Imagine you take a laser pointer, and swing it 90 degrees in one second. Now, conceptualize a measurement of how fast the "dot" is travelling, by imagining a wall at X feet away (curved so that the distance is always the same). At 3 feet away, the dot isn't moving very fast... at 10 feet away, it's moving faster... at a mile away, considerably faster. Now, what about a light-year away? The matter & electromagnetic waves aren't moving faster than light, but the "effect" (the dot) certainly is.

[roid]

what's to stop us from creating a tunnel of magnetic fields, where you influence the magnetic field on one side of the pipe and it instantly effects the magnetic field on the other side of the pipe.

instantaneous communication, faster than light?

coupled with some sort of transporter devices than can turn a human into data and back again - you could communicate that data through the magnetic pipe and arrive at your destination instantly. Lightspeed would be no limit to travel.

If magnetic fields move faster than light, a magnetic field tunnel just seems like such a simple obvious idea for faster than light communication. The fact that i've never heard of such an idea before suggests to me that magnetic fields do NOT move faster than light. no?


To use Foil's analogy, you can send morse code to someone by flickering a laser beam around on them - if magnetic fields are the same but not limited to relativity.... eh? eh?
Tweaking a magnet would be just the same as Tweaking a laser, in Foil's analogy replace relativistic photons with non-relatavistic field lines.

[Gekko71]

Technically if you could stop a photon in a container, the angular energy in the photon no longer exists and the box with the photon would show an increase in mass;

Actually Canuck, they have almost stopped light:

"An entirely new state of matter, first observed four years ago, has made this possible. When atoms become packed super-closely together at super-low temperatures and super-high vacuum, they lose their identity as individual particles and act like a single super- atom with characteristics similar to a laser.

Such an exotic medium can be engineered to slow a light beam 20 million-fold from 186,282 miles a second to a pokey 38 miles an hour."


http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999 ... light.html

The exact same effect can be observed in the Australian Parliment - it's where you shove a large number of super dense politicians in a super small room in a moral vacuum. They lose their identity as individuals and act as one single super-colossal waste of space which slows down the speed of thought, action and progress by decades.

I'm told this is an international phenomenon - is that true for you guys as well?

[SuperSheep]

The particles themselves aren't moving faster than c, but the changing magnetic field that drives their response is "sweeping" past them at superluminal speeds. That's what I'm getting out of the article, at any rate.

That was my understanding, as well.

I would explain it something like this (a poor analogy, but I think it makes the point):

Imagine you take a laser pointer, and swing it 90 degrees in one second. Now, conceptualize a measurement of how fast the "dot" is travelling, by imagining a wall at X feet away (curved so that the distance is always the same). At 3 feet away, the dot isn't moving very fast... at 10 feet away, it's moving faster... at a mile away, considerably faster. Now, what about a light-year away? The matter & electromagnetic waves aren't moving faster than light, but the "effect" (the dot) certainly is.

Of course the person standing a light year away who sees this dot will see it move one year after you move it.

[Foil]

what's to stop us from creating a tunnel of magnetic fields, where you influence the magnetic field on one side of the pipe and it instantly effects the magnetic field on the other side of the pipe.

instantaneous communication, faster than light?

If magnetic fields move faster than light, a magnetic field tunnel just seems like such a simple obvious idea for faster than light communication. The fact that i've never heard of such an idea before suggests to me that magnetic fields do NOT move faster than light. no?

No, they don't. In this whole model, nothing is moving faster than light. The magnetic effect in the article is like the "dot" in my laser pointer analogy, it's a fallacy to think that the dot represents a moving particle or wave or field. The dot and the magnetic effect described in the article are both effects from a very distant source, and carry absolutely nothing with them.

To use Foil's analogy, you can send morse code to someone by flickering a laser beam around on them - if magnetic fields are the same but not limited to relativity.... eh? eh?
Tweaking a magnet would be just the same as Tweaking a laser, in Foil's analogy replace relativistic photons with non-relatavistic field lines.

There's some confusion with sources & destinations here. Continuing to use the laser pointer analogy:

Conceptually, it's possible to simultaneously get the same morse code message to two different space stations which are a light-year apart (source = me, destination = both space stations).

However, this is vastly different from one of the space stations sending a message to the other (source = one station, destination = other station).

Why?

...the person standing a light year away who sees this dot will see it move one year after you move it.

Exactly. This nullifies any application of this to "instantaneous communication".

[TIGERassault]

Think of it this way: I'm looking at a clock while I'm moving backwards away from it. As I move faster, the hands will look to slow down. When I hit the speed of light, no other light is able to reach my eyes and thus the clock stops. If I could move faster than light, I would be receiving light from a point in the past, the clock hands would be moving backwards.

1: You see things from light going into your eyes, right? Now, if you run faster then light, how is it supposed to get into your eyes if it can't even catch up with you?
Hmm... unless you turn around, so that you run into the light that already went past you. But this would be very hard to make out, considering that it would be combined with the light coming towards you, and you'd most likely be too blinded by so much light to even see.
2: You said: "you could become aware of something before it actually happened.", which is just downright false! Something doesn't happen just when you see it happening, something happens when it happens! The only way to see something happening before it happens, without recording anything, would be if light, or you, were to be travelling backwards in time.

[Foil]

Think of it this way: I'm looking at a clock while I'm moving backwards away from it.
...

1: You see things from light going into your eyes, right? Now, if you run faster then light, how is it supposed to get into your eyes if it can't even catch up with you?
Hmm... unless you turn around, so that you run into the light that already went past you. But this would be very hard to make out, considering that it would be combined with the light coming towards you, and you'd most likely be too blinded by so much light to even see.

There's no mention of any light except what is coming from the clock in this thougt-experiment. If you're worried about which direction someone's eyes are facing, just think of a multi-directional optical sensor instead. The concept still applies.

2: You said: "you could become aware of something before it actually happened.", which is just downright false! Something doesn't happen just when you see it happening, something happens when it happens! The only way to see something happening before it happens, without recording anything, would be if light, or you, were to be travelling backwards in time.

I think you missed the point.

The contradiction is not about something "happening" before it happens.

The point is that in this faster-than-light travel scenario, the observer gets information about (i.e. sees / becomes aware of) something before it happens. The contradiction is because this violates the principle of causality (cause & effect).

[TIGERassault]

I think you missed the point.

The contradiction is not about something "happening" before it happens.

The point is that in this faster-than-light travel scenario, the observer gets information about (i.e. sees / becomes aware of) something before it happens. The contradiction is because this violates the principle of causality (cause & effect).

I think I know what you mean, and I think you still have it confused.

Like this: lets say there's a rock on the ground. Then, let's say that the rock gets picked up. Now, if you go faster than light backwards, time appears to be going backwards, and pretty soon you'll be able to see the rock on the ground. Even though you can see the rock on the ground, the rock has already been picked up! There is no actual rock on the ground at this point in time.

Now, out of that, two things can be said, and I think you mean one of these instead of what you stated:
1: Anyone in your new area will see the rock on the ground as you can, but you already saw it. IE: You saw something happen before anyone around you did.
2: If you wait, you, and those around you, will be able to see the rock being picked up. IE: You saw something happen after it happened.

[Bet51987]

Now, out of that, two things can be said, and I think you mean one of these instead of what you stated:
1: Anyone in your new area will see the rock on the ground as you can, but you already saw it. IE: You saw something happen before anyone around you did.
2: If you wait, you, and those around you, will be able to see the rock being picked up. IE: You saw something happen after it happened.

I see where your going with this but its not correct. As you move away from the clock it will appear to slow down and at the speed of light it will appear stopped. If you could go faster than light, you would see nothing because no more information will reach you. It will not appear to be going backwards.

The movement of the rock and the hands of the clock are the same.

Bee

[roid]

Think of it this way: I'm looking at a clock while I'm moving backwards away from it. As I move faster, the hands will look to slow down. When I hit the speed of light, no other light is able to reach my eyes and thus the clock stops. If I could move faster than light, I would be receiving light from a point in the past, the clock hands would be moving backwards.

1: You see things from light going into your eyes, right? Now, if you run faster then light, how is it supposed to get into your eyes if it can't even catch up with you?
Hmm... unless you turn around, so that you run into the light that already went past you. But this would be very hard to make out, considering that it would be combined with the light coming towards you, and you'd most likely be too blinded by so much light to even see.

Oh oh i know this one. It's awesome. When you approach the speed of light you get the doppler effect but instead of with sound it's WITH LIGHT.

ie: a racecar that goes past you sounds higher pitched as it approaches - because the soundwaves are bunched together effectively reducing their wavelength, raising their frequency - higher pitch. Then when it is traveling away from you it's pitch (frequency) sounds lower.
that's the doppler effect with sound.

But with radiation this gets ★■◆●ing nuts, changing the freqency of electromagnetic radiation is dangerous.

What actually happens is as you speed up you end up being FRIED by the light comming from behind you. The harmless visible light comming from behind you has it's freqency lowered into the far infrared. And your ass is absolutely incinerated.

nuts huh?

[roid]

what's to stop us from creating a tunnel of magnetic fields, where you influence the magnetic field on one side of the pipe and it instantly effects the magnetic field on the other side of the pipe.

instantaneous communication, faster than light?

If magnetic fields move faster than light, a magnetic field tunnel just seems like such a simple obvious idea for faster than light communication. The fact that i've never heard of such an idea before suggests to me that magnetic fields do NOT move faster than light. no?

No, they don't. In this whole model, nothing is moving faster than light. The magnetic effect in the article is like the "dot" in my laser pointer analogy, it's a fallacy to think that the dot represents a moving particle or wave or field. The dot and the magnetic effect described in the article are both effects from a very distant source, and carry absolutely nothing with them.

To use Foil's analogy, you can send morse code to someone by flickering a laser beam around on them - if magnetic fields are the same but not limited to relativity.... eh? eh?
Tweaking a magnet would be just the same as Tweaking a laser, in Foil's analogy replace relativistic photons with non-relatavistic field lines.

There's some confusion with sources & destinations here. Continuing to use the laser pointer analogy:

Conceptually, it's possible to simultaneously get the same morse code message to two different space stations which are a light-year apart (source = me, destination = both space stations).

However, this is vastly different from one of the space stations sending a message to the other (source = one station, destination = other station).

Why?

...the person standing a light year away who sees this dot will see it move one year after you move it.

Exactly. This nullifies any application of this to "instantaneous communication".

That's only concerning photons. I have seen nothing showing why magnetic field lines follow the laws of relativity. What i've heard so far is suggesting that they don't!

The article says the rotating magnetic field lines are exciting the plasma to release photons, but who cares about photons - photons are slow and smell like cabbage.
What i'm interested in is JUST that magnetic field lines. No photons, throw away your photons, flush them down the toilet. There is no dot.

I asked if it were like a rotating photon source - spiraling. Nothing i am seeing is suggesting that "yeah, it'll spiral just like a photon source", nothing.

Is Phase velocity and Group velocity the key to this? coz i don't grok that yet.

[woodchip]

Unless you have a awfully large clock, you will not even see it as you travel away from it

So to \"see\" it you will need to train a telescope on it with co-ordinated focus. Only problem then is you will see the clock with a reduced speed factor and the clock will not appear to have stopped even tho you are now at the speed of light.

[SuperSheep]

Whether a magnetic field is created via a magnet or an electromagnet supposedley makes no difference according to what I understand. If that is the case, then radio waves are magnetic fields and as far as I know, radio waves do not travel superluminally?

Also, as I understand it, \"light\" is nothing more than a specific frequency of EM radiation that we can see with our eyes.

I have always thought that electromagnetic fields were indeed all photonic.

[Foil]

Exactly. A bit over-simplified: photons are the \"particle\" description of em-wave phenomena. (You can't separate photons from em-waves, they're different ways of describing and working with the properties of the same thing.)

You also can't separate em-waves (visible light, radio, etc.) from magnetic fields. They're all part of the same set of electro-magnetic phenomena (see Maxwell's Equations).

roid, I understand why you're perceiving that the article suggested that magnetic fields move faster-than-light, but I still think you're misunderstanding.

To use my laser-pointer analogy again, I could say something like \"the dot swings through the electromagnetic field faster than the speed of light\", but that does not imply that any properties of the em field are moving faster than light.

In the same way, the article stating \"this magnetic field swings through the plasma surrounding the star faster than the speed of light\" doesn't imply that anything about the magnetic field moves faster than light. (Personally, I think that's a poor way to state it; it would be better stated as \"the magnetic effect swings through... faster than the speed of light\".)

It may be subtle, but there is a distinct difference.

[TIGERassault]

Unless you have a awfully large clock, you will not even see it as you travel away from it

I think it's generally safe to say that if you can go faster than light without having a horrible death in the process, or at least going blind, it's generally safe to presume that you have ultra-human powers!