What are Radio Waves?

Do you know what are radio waves? They are invisible form that is termed as electromagnetic radiation formed in varied wavelength. It can be measured from a millimeter and can go up to 100,000 km turning into the widest ranges in electromagnetic area.

It is caught through specific devices designed for the purpose and occurs in all forms of electromagnetic radiation that varies from wavelength that is longer than a millimeter and a frequency which is measured above 300 GHz. Frequency is measured by determining how long the calculated time is between crest and trough of a wave arriving. The frequency for visible light is in the range of 450 to 750 terahertz (tera is one trillion) which means one second of waves. A detector is created to for recording the movement of waves.

For sending images, audio and text in the form of signals, radio is most popularly used. The credits for being early pioneers in the section of radio are given to Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi. The long wavelength of the radio lets it to evade obstacles and travel long distances. It is dissimilar to the distances travelled by visible light and other spectra that carry higher frequencies. It was the year 1896 when Marconi patented the world’s first wireless telegraphy system. The waves with the wavelength that travel around an average 10 meters are absorbed by the atmosphere. If not that then the radio waves bounce back and forth between the ionosphere and the ground which makes the radio ideal to transmit over the horizon.

It is also used to detect the locations of submarines under water where lowest frequencies are used to communication. Radio waves are used in this type of communication for its low energy and high penetrating power. They penetrate further in lower frequencies especially in thick media like water.

The first radio waves were predicted by James Clerk Maxwell in the year 1865 who invented electromagnetic equations which was later called as Maxwell’s equations. 22 years later in the year 1887, the existence of waves was confirmed when Heinrich Hertz produced radio waves in his laboratory. It was then within few decades when this new technology was widely used for transmitting data. The longest radio waves created by humans by generating the waves using the whole Earth as an antenna. These waves were measured similar to the diameter of the planet Earth.