I was travelling on a plane (so I’m presuming 600 mph?) and, of course, Bluetooth earphones worked fine with my tablet. Though I guess we were in a vacuum.
If you were outside the plane travelling at that speed, would the earphones still be able to connect to the tablet?
Does relative speed affect the connection, or is the only important factor the distance between the two devices?
In addition, how far would it work in space? 😆
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No, there is no speed limit. Bluetooth works over radiowaves, which is light and the speed of light is the same for all observers because light doesn’t need a medium.
However, if you were traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light and the phone wasn’t, ignoring distances, they wouldn’t be able to communicate properly because they would be experiencing a different passage of time.
I’m not sure how Bluetooth handles its connection exactly, so let’s use a radio as an example. If you are traveling very fast, and I am standing still broadcasting a radio signal to you, for you to pick it up, your radio would have to be set to a different frequency than I am broadcasting at. Higher if you’re moving towards me, lower if you’re moving away from me, and if you’re moving in a circle around me, higher. See special relativity (general relativity for the case of the circle)
Physics works the same no matter what you set as your frame of reference, as long as two things aren’t moving relative to each other, they behave as if they are at rest.
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