1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:00,125 2 00:00:00,125 --> 00:00:01,320 Now things are getting interesting. 3 00:00:01,320 --> 00:00:06,117 Criterion: The higher the frequency, the greater the transmitted energy. 4 00:00:06,117 --> 00:00:14,020 Some of you may know that a radio signal is a wave, but at the same time, it’s also kind of like a small cannonball. 5 00:00:14,020 --> 00:00:19,041 And the higher the frequency, the more energy is contained in that thing. 6 00:00:19,041 --> 00:00:25,450 All right, then I’d like to finally introduce the first speaker. 7 00:00:25,450 --> 00:00:32,564 He’s a household name, not just within our bubble, but far beyond it as well, because my extremely likable and universally popular 8 00:00:32,564 --> 00:00:38,967 fellow MWGFD board member, the physicist Professor Werner Bergholz, is also an expert member of various investigative 9 00:00:38,967 --> 00:00:45,994 commissions—such as those examining the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the states of Brandenburg and Thuringia. 10 00:00:45,994 --> 00:00:52,085 He is a former professor of electrical engineering at Jacobs University in Bremen and also worked for 17 11 00:00:52,085 --> 00:00:58,017 years at Siemens in Munich and Regensburg as an expert in quality and risk management. 12 00:00:58,017 --> 00:01:05,524 We are eager to hear, dear Werner, what you have to say in your introductory presentation on today’s topic, titled “Mobile 13 00:01:05,524 --> 00:01:10,527 Communications Technology: Physical Principles and Technical Advantages of 5G,” and 14 00:01:10,527 --> 00:01:15,648 with that, I’ll turn the floor over to you. 15 00:01:15,648 --> 00:01:19,351 Thank you very much, dear Ronny, for those kind words. 16 00:01:19,351 --> 00:01:27,030 I did write: “Physical Principles and Technical Advantages.” But—dot, dot, dot... 17 00:01:27,030 --> 00:01:39,225 First, I'm going to talk about the basics, and as I wrote in the press kit, I'll start with Adam and Eve. 18 00:01:39,225 --> 00:01:52,224 And now I'm going to show you a short video where a stone is thrown into the water and you can see the ripple spreading out. 19 00:01:52,224 --> 00:01:58,090 That's exactly how you can picture radio waves, and I'll say a few words about that in a moment. 20 00:01:58,090 --> 00:02:00,361 Let's see if it works. 21 00:02:00,361 --> 00:02:06,688 So, here's a quick recap: What is a radio wave?—just to give you a general idea. 22 00:02:06,688 --> 00:02:10,841 So what's the difference between radio—which we've had for 100 years or more—and 23 00:02:10,841 --> 00:02:14,548 cellular communications? Why such high frequencies? 24 00:02:14,548 --> 00:02:22,940 And most importantly: Why aren't these properties of high frequencies necessarily harmless? 25 00:02:22,940 --> 00:02:27,119 And the following speakers will then elaborate on this. 26 00:02:27,119 --> 00:02:30,629 Okay, the stone is about to fall. 27 00:02:39,970 --> 00:02:45,282 So, we've seen two things. The wave is spreading. 28 00:02:45,282 --> 00:02:53,007 In that case, it is essentially a two-dimensional wave. That is the motion of matter. 29 00:02:53,007 --> 00:02:57,811 And if you look closely at the still image, you can see other waves as well. 30 00:02:57,811 --> 00:03:03,654 And that's exactly how it is in reality, which is also part of what makes it so dangerous. 31 00:03:03,654 --> 00:03:11,311 If I have my cell phone in a room like this—and let's just assume we're not in the middle of a lecture—then there might 32 00:03:11,311 --> 00:03:18,419 be 20 people or more using their smartphones at the same time, which would mean there's a jumble of signals. 33 00:03:18,419 --> 00:03:20,394 It's kind of like a party. 34 00:03:20,394 --> 00:03:28,290 Everyone will have to step up their intensity, and that's not necessarily something we should be aiming for right now. 35 00:03:28,290 --> 00:03:33,992 Okay, so we threw a stone into the water, and we saw that the water moved. 36 00:03:33,992 --> 00:03:36,391 It's much the same with radio waves. 37 00:03:36,391 --> 00:03:44,820 The antenna radiates, but now not in two dimensions—rather, spherically. 38 00:03:44,820 --> 00:03:53,056 And most importantly, it doesn't involve any matter—it works even in a vacuum. 39 00:03:53,056 --> 00:03:58,380 And usually, you don't see anything, you don't hear anything. 40 00:03:58,380 --> 00:04:09,615 And the fact that such a thing even exists and has been studied scientifically is thanks to the physicist Heinrich Hertz, 41 00:04:09,615 --> 00:04:18,157 who—after suddenly cutting off a large current—set up a receiver, and that’s when it sparked 42 00:04:18,157 --> 00:04:23,910 a little, which is why it’s called “sparking.” 43 00:04:23,910 --> 00:04:32,665 There is one more huge difference that is very important in practice: As we have 44 00:04:32,665 --> 00:04:38,585 seen, water waves travel at a speed of 20 cm/s. 45 00:04:38,585 --> 00:04:46,657 Sound waves—we're familiar with those, too—travel at 300 m/s; everyone has experienced them during a thunderstorm. 46 00:04:46,657 --> 00:04:52,568 You see the flash, and depending on where it was, it takes one to ten—or even 47 00:04:52,568 --> 00:04:58,752 longer—seconds before you hear the thunder, 300 m/s. 48 00:04:58,752 --> 00:05:11,776 Electromagnetic waves travel slightly faster—not 300 m/s, but 300,000 km/s. 49 00:05:11,776 --> 00:05:19,916 So 300,000,000 m/s—a million times faster. 50 00:05:19,916 --> 00:05:24,704 Of course, this is very important for practical application. 51 00:05:24,704 --> 00:05:41,055 But to put that into perspective: If someone on the Moon turns on a laser, it takes about a second for us to see it here. 52 00:05:41,055 --> 00:05:44,524 If the same thing were to happen on the Sun, it would take eight minutes. 53 00:05:44,524 --> 00:05:50,366 So this is just to illustrate just how vast the distances in space are. 54 00:05:50,366 --> 00:06:07,456 This is now the only formula: The wavelength is related to the speed of light c—300,000 km/s divided by the frequency. 55 00:06:07,456 --> 00:06:13,152 That's roughly how you can picture it—so many waves wash over you. 56 00:06:13,152 --> 00:06:20,089 This means that the higher the frequency, the shorter the wavelength. 57 00:06:20,089 --> 00:06:30,959 So, the current 5G uses wavelengths in this range , and medium-wave frequencies were used in 58 00:06:30,959 --> 00:06:36,635 the past—those were 1,000 meters or 1,600 meters. 59 00:06:36,635 --> 00:06:43,240 The so-called shortwave frequencies were, for example, 49 meters, which was still in the kilohertz (kHz) range. 60 00:06:43,240 --> 00:06:49,527 And it wasn’t until FM—ultra-shortwave, as it was called back then (though today, of course, that would still be 61 00:06:49,527 --> 00:06:57,968 considered relatively long)—that we moved into the megahertz (MHz) range, that is, 1 million oscillations per second. 62 00:06:57,968 --> 00:07:01,443 So, that covers a few basic points for now. 63 00:07:01,443 --> 00:07:07,808 So let's keep this in mind: You can't hear or see electromagnetic waves. 64 00:07:07,808 --> 00:07:10,920 Some people feel it, most don't—and neither do I. 65 00:07:10,920 --> 00:07:18,451 And they spread incredibly fast, and the wavelength or frequency is not entirely unimportant. 66 00:07:18,451 --> 00:07:22,763 Well, we've had radio for what seems like "an eternity and three days." 67 00:07:22,763 --> 00:07:31,458 There was a central transmitter—“an eternity and three days” is roughly 100 years—many receivers, but only one transmitter, as 68 00:07:31,458 --> 00:07:36,904 I said, and the flow of information went in only one direction. 69 00:07:36,904 --> 00:07:43,861 And especially on the medium wave band, the bandwidth was narrow, because, after all, it was mainly 70 00:07:43,861 --> 00:07:47,640 used to broadcast speech or music of modest quality. 71 00:07:47,640 --> 00:07:51,973 And that brings us to one thing: 72 00:07:51,973 --> 00:08:00,139 When I want to transmit information—such as speech, music, or video—I need not just a 73 00:08:00,139 --> 00:08:05,152 single frequency, but a certain bandwidth. 74 00:08:05,152 --> 00:08:06,625 So I have to pay for it. 75 00:08:06,625 --> 00:08:20,271 When it comes to mobile communications, we don't talk about kilohertz; we started with megahertz, and now we're talking 76 00:08:20,271 --> 00:08:27,687 about gigahertz—that's the range up to 6 or 8 GHz for 5G. 77 00:08:27,687 --> 00:08:31,406 I'll get back to why high frequencies are so important in a moment. 78 00:08:31,406 --> 00:08:39,321 So, now let's talk about cellular networks—it's clear that we have a transmitter—the base station—typically one kilometer or a 79 00:08:39,321 --> 00:08:46,985 few kilometers away—with 5G, that can be as little as 100 meters—many phones acting as receivers and many phones acting as 80 00:08:46,985 --> 00:08:51,684 transmitters at the same time; I already mentioned that briefly. 81 00:08:51,684 --> 00:08:56,036 It makes for a nice jumble when they're all doing something at the same time. 82 00:08:56,036 --> 00:09:02,239 And I always need more bandwidth and a higher data rate. 83 00:09:02,239 --> 00:09:06,543 Incidentally, you can think of it in the same way as the federal budget: 84 00:09:06,543 --> 00:09:16,753 That was back around 1950, when I was born—in the 100-million range, hundreds of millions. 85 00:09:16,753 --> 00:09:20,074 That allowed me to finance projects worth 2–3 million. 86 00:09:20,074 --> 00:09:27,346 Now we're talking about billions, and of course I'd need a federal budget of 500 billion or so. 87 00:09:27,346 --> 00:09:33,260 It's kind of the same here: if I want to transfer high data rates, I need a lot more bandwidth. 88 00:09:33,260 --> 00:09:42,272 Here's a typical example: with the original analog television, the bandwidth was about 5 MHz. 89 00:09:42,272 --> 00:09:47,712 Digitally, only about 1 MHz and a little more. 90 00:09:47,712 --> 00:09:53,597 When it comes to GHz, it depends on which bandwidth I'm using and how much data I want to transfer 91 00:09:53,597 --> 00:09:58,969 at that moment, and this is handled dynamically. 92 00:09:58,969 --> 00:10:06,802 So, back to bandwidth—I actually just mentioned this—analog broadcasting is prone to interference, while 93 00:10:06,802 --> 00:10:11,226 digital TV and radio are resistant to interference. 94 00:10:11,226 --> 00:10:21,608 But I just mentioned in passing that digital television has some minor systematic errors. 95 00:10:21,608 --> 00:10:28,680 If there are any soccer fans among us, take a look next time a player—who’s short, maybe wearing something red—runs 96 00:10:28,680 --> 00:10:35,428 across the green field; if you pay close attention, you’ll notice there’s always a little line around him. 97 00:10:35,428 --> 00:10:38,375 That's a mistake, but it's not very noticeable. 98 00:10:38,375 --> 00:10:43,700 Mathematically speaking, it's what's known as the Gibbs phenomenon—that's all I'll say about it. 99 00:10:43,700 --> 00:10:47,756 So, regarding transmission—why such high frequencies? I've just explained that. 100 00:10:47,756 --> 00:10:55,919 Every transmission requires a certain amount of spectrum, a frequency band. 101 00:10:55,919 --> 00:10:58,778 That must not overlap with the others. 102 00:10:58,778 --> 00:11:07,461 And if I have a lot of channels, then I just need a lot more bandwidth, and if I want to transfer a lot of data, even more. 103 00:11:07,461 --> 00:11:13,976 So, video—as I already mentioned—MHz, lots of data, 10 to 100 MHz. 104 00:11:13,976 --> 00:11:16,735 It's probably possible to do even more, depending on the situation. 105 00:11:16,735 --> 00:11:23,952 Definitely 6G—though it always depends on what your specific needs are. 106 00:11:26,571 --> 00:11:32,697 Okay, I'd already briefly mentioned this out loud—on purpose—because when I just tell something, people pay more 107 00:11:32,697 --> 00:11:37,500 attention than when they're seeing it at the same time. 108 00:11:37,500 --> 00:11:49,554 So: 100 MHz is roughly equivalent to—I need a budget of billions of euros, or I need a frequency budget of gigahertz. 109 00:11:49,554 --> 00:12:06,023 And in the graph, over there on the right, you can see the bandwidths that, for example, UMTS required—that was 3G—then 110 00:12:06,023 --> 00:12:14,974 LTE required significantly more, and now 5G requires even more. 111 00:12:14,974 --> 00:12:22,935 And, as I said, it depends; it's handled flexibly, but that's more or less how you can picture it. 112 00:12:22,935 --> 00:12:33,348 So now we have the basics, so to speak, and what comes next—let's say—are the critical points. 113 00:12:33,348 --> 00:12:38,925 So that covers the basics for now. Here are the spectra again. 114 00:12:38,925 --> 00:12:48,714 As you can see, 5G requires much more than 4G or LTE. By the way, LTE stands for “Long Term Evolution.” 115 00:12:48,714 --> 00:12:54,831 It's a pretty meaningless thing, and it has different stages, too. 116 00:12:54,831 --> 00:13:03,571 Now things are getting interesting in terms of biology or potential harm. 117 00:13:03,571 --> 00:13:13,473 There is one criterion: The higher the frequency, the greater the transmitted energy. 118 00:13:13,473 --> 00:13:24,724 Some of you may know that a radio signal is a wave, but at the same time, it’s also like a tiny cannonball or a 119 00:13:24,724 --> 00:13:31,282 photon—in the case of light, it’s also called a photon. 120 00:13:31,282 --> 00:13:38,380 And the higher the frequency, the more energy is contained in that thing. 121 00:13:38,380 --> 00:13:53,709 And when this 5G wave is absorbed by my skin or my eyes, it penetrates to a certain depth and is absorbed completely. 122 00:13:53,709 --> 00:14:03,288 And if I'm talking now, let's say, about 100 MHz compared to 8 GHz, that's 80 times as much 123 00:14:03,288 --> 00:14:09,067 energy per energy packet that's affecting me there. 124 00:14:09,067 --> 00:14:15,555 It is both a wave and a kind of packet, depending on how you look at it. 125 00:14:17,329 --> 00:14:19,962 And that's the worst thing of all. 126 00:14:19,962 --> 00:14:27,078 I heard someone say during a lecture or presentation, “Yeah, that’s great,” or what do we see? 127 00:14:27,078 --> 00:14:36,389 Here we can see that the higher the frequency, the shallower the penetration depth. 128 00:14:36,389 --> 00:14:41,693 This is the penetration depth, and this is the frequency —both are logarithmic representations. 129 00:14:41,693 --> 00:14:47,581 Otherwise, you wouldn't see anything if it were linear, and we just need to remember: the higher 130 00:14:47,581 --> 00:14:51,720 the frequency, the shallower the penetration depth. 131 00:14:51,720 --> 00:14:56,473 This was said: “That’s good, then it won’t go in that far.” 132 00:14:56,473 --> 00:15:02,776 Among other things, I am also a certified radiation safety specialist because I worked 133 00:15:02,776 --> 00:15:06,411 with radioactive materials for many years. 134 00:15:06,411 --> 00:15:14,223 That's when I learned that the shallower the penetration, the worse it is. Why? 135 00:15:14,223 --> 00:15:22,860 The energy density—it doesn't matter whether it's radioactive ionizing radiation or non-ionizing radiation. 136 00:15:22,860 --> 00:15:30,722 The shallower the penetration depth, the more energy is deposited in a given volume. 137 00:15:30,722 --> 00:15:38,246 And I think that makes sense: the more energy is concentrated in a given volume, the greater the chance 138 00:15:38,246 --> 00:15:42,674 that it might cause problems and result in damage. 139 00:15:42,674 --> 00:15:53,403 People have actually been rather naive in saying, “Yes, ionizing radiation—of course that’s harmful—but the fact is”—and the 140 00:15:53,403 --> 00:16:05,256 next speakers will surely go into this in more detail—“that there are also problems with this non-ionizing radiation.” 141 00:16:05,256 --> 00:16:08,960 Well, this might just be the most important slide of all. 142 00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:14,170 A shallow penetration depth is not good—it's bad. 143 00:16:14,170 --> 00:16:21,360 So, on the left, we see a schematic diagram typical of 5G. 144 00:16:21,360 --> 00:16:33,576 Not all 5G—that is, 5G in rural areas doesn’t work that way—but in densely built-up areas, it will work such that instead of 145 00:16:33,576 --> 00:16:43,034 using a single antenna, a so-called antenna array—for example, an 8x8 array of transmitters—will 146 00:16:43,034 --> 00:16:48,089 generate a beam through electrical manipulation. 147 00:16:48,089 --> 00:16:54,697 But when you hear the word “beam,” you might think of a flashlight or a laser—but that’s not what it is. 148 00:16:54,697 --> 00:16:58,902 While preparing for this presentation, I had to learn it myself first. 149 00:16:58,902 --> 00:17:01,011 That's kind of how I had imagined it, too. 150 00:17:01,011 --> 00:17:14,303 But no, that's not it —they're also called "pencil rays"—it's actually more like this: This is what's known as a polar diagram. 151 00:17:14,303 --> 00:17:23,631 This shows the intensity in the direction of a certain number of individual antennas that are coordinated to transmit 152 00:17:23,631 --> 00:17:32,447 together, and we're looking in the 0-degree direction—that's the main lobe; these things are also called lobes. 153 00:17:32,447 --> 00:17:40,387 It isn't as localized or as directional, but it's obviously much better for this application than if it 154 00:17:40,387 --> 00:17:44,516 were omnidirectional, as we saw with spherical waves. 155 00:17:44,516 --> 00:17:50,486 It's aimed specifically at the person who needs it and, to some extent, their surroundings, 156 00:17:50,486 --> 00:17:53,539 while the rest don't really notice it that much. 157 00:17:53,539 --> 00:17:58,650 That's certainly a positive thing, but the person standing in the radiation—and that's not just him, but 158 00:17:58,650 --> 00:18:03,560 perhaps also someone who happens to be standing next to him—will naturally be affected as well. 159 00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:12,624 But as I said before, the bigger danger is actually your own device, at least if you hold it like this . 160 00:18:12,624 --> 00:18:21,764 When you're using the hands-free feature and holding it in your hand like this, it works much better, so I highly recommend it. 161 00:18:21,764 --> 00:18:36,814 Okay, so 5G operates at 700 MHz, and it says here “up to 26 GHz,” so as far as I know, 5G only goes 162 00:18:36,814 --> 00:18:44,832 up to 8 GHz—just like Radio Yerevan: “It depends!” 163 00:18:44,832 --> 00:18:50,947 So, if I'm in a rural area, that's where I use the lower frequencies. 164 00:18:50,947 --> 00:19:02,941 Why? Because they're practically not absorbed by the air, so I don't need a base station for this area. 165 00:19:02,941 --> 00:19:10,815 If I want to work with a directed beam—that is, at the highest frequencies—then, based on a rough estimate, I’ll probably 166 00:19:10,815 --> 00:19:14,205 need 100 smaller base stations. That’s much more expensive. 167 00:19:14,205 --> 00:19:17,856 And then there's the middle section and the narrower section. 168 00:19:17,856 --> 00:19:25,333 And that's how you have to picture it. So, Vilsbiburg—it's not particularly big; I think it's more of a medium-sized town. 169 00:19:25,333 --> 00:19:33,480 And when we're in a larger city, 5G—which is very likely to be available there, whether today or sometime in the 170 00:19:33,480 --> 00:19:41,020 near future—will take a certain amount of time to be fully implemented from a technical standpoint. 171 00:19:41,020 --> 00:19:43,518 It does cost a little money, after all. 172 00:19:43,518 --> 00:19:56,185 Okay, so that's—let's say—I've just outlined the technical aspects and hinted a little at where problems might arise. 173 00:19:56,185 --> 00:20:03,254 Generally speaking, I feel that the so-called precautionary principle is missing. 174 00:20:03,254 --> 00:20:11,875 In the EU, it has actually been standard practice up until now to introduce a new technology only after 175 00:20:11,875 --> 00:20:19,940 conducting a thorough risk analysis and risk assessment to ensure that it is, in fact, safe. 176 00:20:19,940 --> 00:20:22,183 In the U.S., it's a little bit the other way around. 177 00:20:22,183 --> 00:20:30,300 First you just go ahead and do it, then you see if anything happens, and if it does, you put the brakes on. 178 00:20:32,252 --> 00:20:39,825 Our dear host Ronny also mentioned the COVID-19 vaccine earlier; in that case, the 179 00:20:39,825 --> 00:20:45,120 precautionary principle certainly did not apply. 180 00:20:45,120 --> 00:20:50,165 Even our former chancellor said, “We’re all guinea pigs.” 181 00:20:50,165 --> 00:20:57,756 But I'm sure not many of those sitting here have allowed themselves to be used as guinea pigs. 182 00:20:57,756 --> 00:21:06,083 And so, when it comes to mobile communications, I believe that, somewhere along the line, the 183 00:21:06,083 --> 00:21:10,759 precautionary principle has not been observed. 184 00:21:10,759 --> 00:21:14,212 And I was pretty much right on time with my 20 minutes. 185 00:21:14,212 --> 00:21:23,860 So, to recap: Radio waves—you can't see them, they travel through a vacuum, but at an incredibly high speed. 186 00:21:23,860 --> 00:21:28,149 And there's no doubt that mobile communications have useful applications—as Ronny has already pointed out. 187 00:21:28,149 --> 00:21:33,709 But, as I said, the precautionary principle does actually apply. 188 00:21:33,709 --> 00:21:41,314 The higher the frequency, the greater the energy input, and in densely built-up areas, 189 00:21:41,314 --> 00:21:45,179 there is or will be directional radiation. 190 00:21:45,179 --> 00:21:52,701 On the one hand, it's good that the overall exposure is reduced a bit, but on the other hand, it's not so good—anyone 191 00:21:52,701 --> 00:21:57,538 standing in the beam is exposed to a bit more radiation. 192 00:21:57,538 --> 00:22:00,796 Yes, that's it. Thank you. 193 00:22:05,105 --> 00:22:13,578 Cell phone and Wi-Fi radiation harms people, animals, and the environment. We need radiation-free zones! asza.org