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Energy, which measures a person’s capacity to execute work, can take numerous forms and shift from one type to another. When charged particles, including electrons and protons, move, they generate varying electromagnetic fields. This is known as electromagnetic waves.
Mechanical waves and electromagnetic radiation are two significant modes of energy transport in our environment. These mechanical waves propagate through a material by causing material to oscillate.
Electromagnetic Waves Diagram
Static electricity is the type of energy that causes your hair to stand on end when you brush it. Magnetism is also static, as in a refrigerator’s magnet. A varying magnetic field causes a fluctuating electric field to vary, and vice-versa—the two are closely related. An electromagnetic waves diagram is created when these changing fields interact. The propagation of electromagnetic waves differs from that of mechanical waves as for mechanical waves, a medium is required. Electromagnetic waves may pass through a vacuum, air and solid.
Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell formulated a scientific theory in the 1860s and 1870s that explains the electromagnetic wave.
He developed what is now known as “Maxwell’s Equations” to summarise this electricity-magnetism relationship.
Maxwell’s theories were applied to the production and transmission of radio waves by German physicist Heinrich Hertz. The hertz unit of radio frequency is named after Heinrich Hertz.
Features of Electromagnetic Waves
The frequency of electromagnetic (EM) waves is an inherent property. Maxwell states that altering the electric field produces a magnetic field. Charge acceleration causes a changing magnetic field, which causes a changing electric field. So an Electromagnetic Waves Diagram is composed of sinusoidally-fluctuating electric and magnetic fields, both of which are perpendicular to each other.
As they travel, electromagnetic waves exhibit a transverse nature because the electric and magnetic fields are varied perpendicular to one another and direction of propagation of the wave.
Accelerated charges create electromagnetic waves.
Electromagnetic waves are synchronised oscillations of electromagnetic fields that travel at light speeds in a vacuum.
Electromagnetic waves have a wavelength, frequency and amplitude.
When sunshine warms our skin, we may feel electromagnetic waves releasing their energy.
In a vacuum, electromagnetic waves have a constant velocity that is almost equal to 3×108ms−1
It is denoted by C = 1/√μoϵo
For electromagnetic waves to travel, no material medium is required.
An electromagnetic wave’s inherent property is its frequency. Their frequencies remain constant, but the wave’s wavelength changes as it travels through different media.
For a given material, the refractive index can be expressed as n = √μrϵr
Electromagnetic waves are added on the basis of the superposition principle.
Electromagnetic waves have a constant ratio of electric to magnetic fields oscillating in phase. The proportion of the amplitudes of the electric and magnetic fields equals the electromagnetic wave’s velocity.
C = E0/B0
The electromagnetic waves’ electric and magnetic fields carry the same energy.
Electromagnetic Spectrum
Electromagnetic radiation is defined by various frequencies and wavelengths, each corresponding to a certain intensity and quantity of energy.
An electromagnetic wave travels in a path perpendicular to the vibrations of both electric and magnetic oscillatory field vectors, transferring energy from its source to an unknown final destination. Both fields are perpendicular to one another.
A radio station’s transmission, heat radiating from a stove or fireplace, an X-ray of teeth are all examples of electromagnetic radiation with fundamental wave-like features. Visible light is just one type of electromagnetic radiation that oscillates with distinct peaks and valleys that characterise the radiation’s direction of travel, energy and intensity.
The wavelength (in a vacuum) is used as the standard unit to measure all electromagnetic radiation. For the visible light spectrum, this is often expressed in nanometers. Each nanometer is one-thousandth of a micrometre in length and is defined by the difference between the two consecutive peaks.
The frequency of the associated radiation wave, defined as the number of sinusoidal cycling (oscillations or completed wavelengths) that passes through a given point every second, is proportional to the wavelength reciprocal. Typically, frequency is expressed in (Hz) Hertz or (cps) cycles per second. Thus, longer wavelengths are associated with lower frequency radiation, whereas shorter wavelengths are associated with higher frequency radiation.
Conclusion
Electromagnetic waves are disturbances in space that can transport energy from one point to another. They are transverse waves. That is, the direction of propagation of these waves are perpendicular to the direction of oscillation of electric and magnetic fields associated with it.
