Etherphone

Etherphone is a fictional or speculative handheld communication device described in science fiction and some theoretical discussions that imagines transmitting audio by directly coupling to a pervasive field called the ether. In these depictions, the ether is a modern reinterpretation of the historical luminiferous aether or a quantum vacuum field that can carry information without conventional radio waves, enabling messages to travel across vast distances with little or no degradation. The concept draws on historical ideas about an all-pervasive medium but differs from mainstream physics, which has not found evidence for a usable ether.

In typical portrayals, the Etherphone converts sound into a modulated field signal and then demodulates received signals back into audio. Power sources range from compact batteries to energy harvesters, with devices often described as portable. Advanced variants may claim near-instantaneous communication or range beyond line-of-sight, though such claims are fictional and controversial within real physics. Security concerns in fiction include eavesdropping through the ether and the potential for universal interception, as well as debates about privacy and control of a ubiquitous field.

In culture, Etherphone appears in novels, games, and speculative essays as a thought experiment about the limits of information transfer, the history of the aether concept, and the interface between technology and physics. It remains a conceptual device rather than a real-world technology recognized by mainstream science.