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How is visible light an electromagnetic wave?
I mean,when you light up a match or burn a piece of wood,the fire produced will give us light and heat.But what does this got to do with "electromagnetic"?
In simpler terms,I'm asking how are light considered as an "electromagnetic" wave?
I'm new to physics,so please,don't answer me if you are intending to insult me.
To the cliquerocks 123:
I understand that light doesn't need a medium to travel,but what I'm asking here is how light was defined as "electromagnetic" wave?
What does light from,let's say,a burning wood has to do with the term "electromagnetic"?
And it was Heinrich Hertz who was the one proposed the idea that light is an electromagnetic wave,right?
5 Answers
- mathematicianLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
The history here is actually pretty interesting. For a long time, people studied the properties of light: how it reflected, how it refracted, it's speed, etc. They also studied electricity: how it was conducted, how to make batteries, etc. And they studied magnets: how they attract and repel, how moving magnets can make an electric current, how electyric currents can make a magnetic field, etc.
Then, Maxwell found a way to unify all the observations of electricity and magnetism into one, overarching theory. When he did this, he found that his theory predicted electromagnetic waves. When he calculated the velocity that these waves should travel at, he found it to be the same as the (already known) velocity of light! So he proposed that light is, in fact, an electromagnetic wave. This has been substantiated in a variety of ways, including details of how light is absorbed and emitted by matter, how it travels through plasmas (electrically neutral mixes of ions) and other phenomena.
In the case of your match, it is the electrons getting jostled around by the heat of the flame that produce the electromagnetic waves, which we see as light. So there don't have to be visible magnets or electric currents to produce light.
- 1 decade ago
The answer to this question is very simple, light is electromagnetic because it is made up of both electric and magnetic fields. Both fields are transverse to each other, or in plain terms both fields are perpendicular (at right angle) to each other. U can visit sites like "how stuff works" that show how these fields make up a light wave
Source(s): How Stuff Works - 1 decade ago
Because visible light does not nead an median to go through. It can work without a median.
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- 1 decade ago
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