Electromagnetic Wave: Explaining Proportions for Visualization

[pikapika!]

Can someone please explain what an electromagnetic wave would look like. I've heard it being decribed as a massless particle but i don't think that is an accurate description.

I am asking about the proportions of the wave so that i can visualize it in my mind.

 

[Laser Jock]

Well, it's not like you can study an E-M wave under a microscope. An alternating electric and magnetic field may be the best you can do.

http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/waves_particles/

 

[Laser Jock]

http://imagers.gsfc.nasa.gov/ems/waves2.html

 

[theriddler876]

I like to think of them as photons with very very little mass, that move really fast, and all objects travel in a wave so they are photons that tavel in wave.

It has been proved that electrons are waves through diffraction and such, and their mass has also been calculated, also moving electrons (electricity) excite various things, by this logic I say that photons are moving particles that behave as waves because they diffract, have an even smaller mass, and excite other things, such as electrons or the thingies in our eyes.

 

[jtbell]

http://imagers.gsfc.nasa.gov/ems/waves2.html

The picture at the bottom of that page would be more accurate if

1. the vector arrows stayed in the same locations, but got longer and shorter (or thicker/thinner or darker/lighter, depending on what you're using to represent the strength of the field) as time passes.

2. the vector arrows filled the entire volume instead of existing only in two perpendicular planes. (but that would make for a really messy-looking diagram!)