- #1
joey_m
- 22
- 0
As I've been studying up on EM radiation, I've come to the conclusion that radio and light waves are not the same thing. Radio seems to be nothing other than a continuously flipping magnetic field (source: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/radio/radiowaves.html). In this way, there do not seem to be such things as "radio waves". Radio, in other words, is the same phenomenon as jiggling a magnet around a conductor in order to induce a current.
Light propagation, however, is a totally different animal. Some people say that light is caused by electric currents feeding into magnetic fields (and vice versa), but this explanation doesn't make much sense. Aren't electric currents and magnetic fields just different sides of the same coin? In other words, they can't "cause" one another if there is no difference between the two. A single electric current will always describe a single magnetic field, and vice versa. So, if you increase the current or move the wire around, won't the field immediately adjust to it? This doesn't seem to be a formula for the indefinite propagation of a light wave!
Light just seems to be a result of the enormous amount of pure kinetic energy that is released whenever a molecule or an atom is destroyed. I don't know what makes this kind of energy propagation "electromagnetic"!
Am I the only one who thinks that scientists do a disservice when they lump together two vastly different concepts such as these under a single, amorphous umbrella called "electromagnetic radiation"?
Light propagation, however, is a totally different animal. Some people say that light is caused by electric currents feeding into magnetic fields (and vice versa), but this explanation doesn't make much sense. Aren't electric currents and magnetic fields just different sides of the same coin? In other words, they can't "cause" one another if there is no difference between the two. A single electric current will always describe a single magnetic field, and vice versa. So, if you increase the current or move the wire around, won't the field immediately adjust to it? This doesn't seem to be a formula for the indefinite propagation of a light wave!
Light just seems to be a result of the enormous amount of pure kinetic energy that is released whenever a molecule or an atom is destroyed. I don't know what makes this kind of energy propagation "electromagnetic"!
Am I the only one who thinks that scientists do a disservice when they lump together two vastly different concepts such as these under a single, amorphous umbrella called "electromagnetic radiation"?