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Asked by aamnaraza to Dalya, Derek, Sarah, Tim, Tom on 19 Jun 2011.
Question: how many waves make up the electro-magnetic spectrum?
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Derek McKay-Bukowski answered on 17 Jun 2011:
Tricky question to answer.
It is like asking: how many waves are there in the ocean. If you said some number, I could dive in and create some more. And what about the new ones being created by the wind or the ones that “die” on the beach?
The electro-magnetic spectrum is similar.
So perhaps you could ask how many TYPES of waves are there? Well, that’s sort of similar. In the same way that there are big waves and small waves in the ocean, there are the same in the electro-magnetic spectrum. Plus there are all the sizes in between.
From a physical point of view, the difference between UV and visible light is only one to do with the size of the wave.
Now, people do categorise them, so there is radio, infra-red, visible, ultraviolet, x-ray and gamma rays. But then you can split any of these up too. Visible light can be red, orange, yellow, green blue, indigo, violet. Or radio can be low frequency, medium frequency, high frequency, very high frequency, and so on.
Not easy to count them, I’m afraid.
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Tom Crick answered on 18 Jun 2011:
Hello, I might be deliberating misunderstanding your question, but the electromagnetic spectrum is essentially infinite! We have named the spectrum we encounter: (low frequency to high frequency, or large wavelength to smaller wavelength) radio waves, microwaves, infra red, visibile, ultra-violet, X-rays, gamma rays…but you can have infinite variation in the frequency or size of wavelength.
An electromagnetic wave is an example of a transverse wave, a moving wave that consists of oscillations occurring perpendicular (right angled) to the direction of energy transfer (in this case, the electric and magnetic fields).
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Sarah Thomas answered on 19 Jun 2011:
I agree with Derek’s answer – sorry we can’t give you a definite answer! 😀
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