From large companies to small businesses, everyone understands the importance of Wi-Fi technology in making it easier to connect to the Internet. Even planes that were previously cut off from the digital world are beginning to offer in-flight WiFi.
Today, you can complete your work and projects or watch a movie on Netflix while traveling. But wait, what does all this have to do with potatoes?!
How does Wi-Fi work in airplanes?
The aircraft receives radio signals on two waves: through an air-to-ground Wi-Fi network, and wireless communication via satellite, it has an antenna through which it receives the signal.
Air-to-ground Wi-Fi: When the aircraft is within the radius of the network tower, it receives signal waves from there and then travels to the nearest tower network when its flight is complete. However, this is only possible if the plane is flying over the ground
Satellite communication: When flying over vast expanses of ocean, the aircraft uses a Wi-Fi network that it receives as a signal from the satellites orbiting above.
During travel, the aircraft acts as a connection point provider for passenger devices.
Why are potatoes used to test WiFi on airplanes?
Unlike Superman's rays, radio waves cannot penetrate all types of matter. Depending on the object, it may be absorbed, reflected, or refracted.
Since WiFi signals are radio waves, they are vulnerable to being absorbed by other organisms and weakening their strength. These things include "humans".
An average plane can accommodate 200 people seated in rows. To make sure every passenger, including those in the back, receives a strong wireless Internet signal, engineers at Boeing Co. have requested test subjects that can help determine the approximate strength of aircraft Wi-Fi and potential weaknesses.
Instead of bringing ordinary people to the test by sitting them still for hours while the experimental data was created, potato sacks were used.
Believe it or not, the water and chemical content of 9,000g of potatoes absorb and reflect radio signals in a manner similar to an entire human-operated plane.
As for choosing potatoes over other vegetables and fruits, the potato's dielectric constant at the specified frequency matched that of humans - a finding they discovered after looking at a research paper on the dielectric constants of 15 types of vegetables and fruits.
Conclusion..
Most of us are aware of the delicious nature of potatoes, as well as their nutritional benefits and use in making paper and cloth.
However, who would have guessed its impeccable contributions to promoting global connectivity?
It is also remarkable that as science advances, and research becomes more complex, there is still room for simple methods to achieve the best results!