Electromagnetic Spectrum for the Middle School Student Waves are all around us and come in various forms. Sound waves can travel through air because air is made of molecules, which carry the sound. Another type of wave is electromagnetic waves, which are different than sound waves because they don’t need molecules to travel. This means that electromagnetic waves can travel through air and solid materials as well as empty space (Groleau 2011). The electromagnetic spectrum consists of all waves of energy found in our universe. Radio waves, microwaves, infrared light, visible light, UV light, X-rays, and gamma rays, are the are the most common wavelengths on the spectrum. Wavelength is the distance between one wave crest (peak) to the next. Waves in the electromagnetic spectrum vary in size-- from very long radio waves the size of buildings, to very short gamma rays smaller than the size of the nucleus of an atom. But you may ask, are all of these waves that different from one another? The answer in fact, is no! What differentiates these types of waves is the amount of energy they carry. Photons, the smallest massless unit of energy, bundle up and travel in waves. The amount of photons that travel are measured and classified by the energy they posses. As the wavelength of the waves decrease, the amount of energy of the photons increases (Bitesize 2011). The visible eye can detect waves lengths between .4 millimeters and .7 millimeters long (Groleau 2011). We call this visible light. Look around you-- everything you see has waves of light bouncing off of it that your eyes detect and turn to images in your brain. Waves measuring less than .4 millimeters long are considered ultraviolet (UV) waves (Bitesize 2011). These ... ... middle of paper ... ... Works Cited "BBC - GCSE Bitesize: What is a spectrum?." BBC - Homepage. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. . "Electromagnetic Spectrum - Introduction." Imagine The Universe! Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. . Groleau, Rick. "NOVA | Electromagnetic Spectrum Tour." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. . Seely, Samuel, and Alexander Poularikas. Electromagnetics: classical and modern theory and applications. New York: M. Dekker, 1979. Print "Blue Shift." Universe Today — Space and astronomy news. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2011. .
Visual perception is what aids a human analyze their surrounds, recognize what is around them and is crucial to help the brain make decisions based on what they see. When a basketball player faces the hoop before he shoots the jump shot, he must first identify where the backboard is. Visual perception all starts with visible light. A band of energy within the electromagnetic spectrum is created by electric charges and is radiated as waves, known as Wavelengths. “The energy in this spectrum can be described by its wavelength—the distance between the peaks of the electromagnetic waves“(Goldstein, 2013).
X-rays and gamma ray photons are part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The twin nature of electromagnetic radiation is used to justify the wave and its behavior. A photon is a bundle of energy that can be identified by the equation E = hv. Where h is the planks constant and v is the frequency. The frequency is equal to the speed of light 3x10 8 divided by the wavelength. Therefore, high-energy radiations have a short wavelength and a high frequency.
Waller, William H. The Milky Way: An Insider's Guide. Princeton, N.J: Princeton UP, 2013. 42+. Print.
Redd, Nola T. "Space and NASA News – Universe and Deep Space Information | Space.com." Space.com. Space.com, 08 Mar. 2013. Web. 26 Mar. 2014. .
Spectrum refers to the electromagnetic spectrum, which is the range of frequencies through which electromagnetic radiation travels. Electromagnetic radiation is the energy that travels at the speed of light in waves as a stream of photon particles. This form of energy encompasses radio waves, microwaves, visible, nonvisible light, X–rays and gamma rays, and these classifications are based upon the frequency at which the energy travels (see figure 1). In order to refer to a specific portion, also called a band, of the electromagnetic spectrum, one uses Hertz (Hz) as the unit of measurement.
The first parabolic radio telescope was an astronomical instrument invented by Grote Reber in 1937. He was the first to create a telescope that would be able to see radio wavelengths, rather than visible light. The electromagnetic spectrum is made up of six parts: (1) Gamma Rays, (2) X-Rays, (3) Ultraviolet, (4) Visible Light, (5) Infrared, and (6) Radio waves. Radio waves have longer wavelengths than the rest of the wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. They range anywhere from a few centimeters to several kilometers. Visible light is the most studied part of the electromagnetic spectrum and is known for having short wavelengths. Grote Reber built his first parabolic radio telescopes with a unique dish shape in his backyard using the work of Karl Jansky as inspiration.
Spring, K. R., & Davidson, M. W. (2016, 05 17). Light: Particle or a Wave? Retrieved from Physics of Light and Color: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/lightandcolor/particleorwave.html
Each of the senses receives a different stimulus that allows us to perceive that specific type of information. For hearing the stimulus is sound waves. These are waves of pressure that are conducted through a medium (Martini, 2009). Often this medium is air but it can also be water or a solid object. Each wave consists of a region where the air molecules are gathered together and an opposite region where they are farther apart (Martini, 2009). A wavelength is the distance between either two wave peaks or two wave troughs. The number of waves that pass through a fixed reference point in a given time is the frequency. High pitch sounds have a high frequency where as low pitch sounds have a low frequency (Myers, 2010). The amplitude is the amount of energy, or intensity, in a sound wave. The more energy that a sound wave has, the louder it seems. For us to perceive any of the sound waves around us, they must pass through the external, middle, and inner ea...
Kirkpatrick, Larry D. and Gerald F. Wheeler. Physics: A World View, 4th ed. Orlando, FL. Harcourt College Publishers: 2001. p- 365-71
Included in the electromagnetic spectrum are light waves, television waves, and microwaves. Visible light is also a smaller part of the electromagnetic spectrum, but it has its own visible-light spectrum. All the electromagnetic energy frequencies that humans can see are defined as visible light. It is created by electrons that have lost energy inside the atom. The energy given off by those electrons then becomes light photons (Congdon, Donald, 306;310). The lower the wavelength/frequency/energy of electromagnetic radiation, the darker red it will be in the visible spectrum, whereas the higher the wavelength/frequency/energy, the more indigo colored it will be (The Electromagnetic Spectrum). The visible spectrum is the part of
Physicists have observed that as well as acting like waves, EMR acts like a stream of massless particles (called ‘photons’). The frequencies of electromagnetic radiation can be calculated by dividing the speed of light by the wavelength of the electromagnetic radiation. Regions of the Electromagnetic Spectrum have been named by scientists to provide an easier way to remember and refer to the ranges; however, in reality neighbouring types of electromagnetic energy often overlap. The higher the frequency the more harmful the rays are. At the lower end of the Spectrum are ‘Radio’ waves.
Radar can be traced back as far as 1832 when British physicist Michael Faraday suggested the existence of an electromagnetic field between certain objects from his scientific observations. Working from these ideas, British physicist James Clerk Maxwell predicted mathematically the existence and behavior of radio waves in 1873. In 1886, physicist Heinrich Hertz from Germany and Elihu Thomson from America confirmed the existence of radio waves with demonstrations showing examples of reflection, refraction, and direction finding of radio waves. By 1904, Christian Hulsmeyer, a German inventor, applied for a patent for a device that used radio waves in a collision-avoidance device for ships.
Microwaves are low on the electromagnetic spectrum. The electromagnetic spectrum is a range of all the possible electromagnetic radiation. Frequency of a wave is the number of waves per second and the frequency of a microwave is between 300 MHz and 300 GHz. The wavelength of a wave is the distance from one peak of a wave to the peak of a following wave and the wavelength of a microwave varies from one millimeter to thirty centimeters. The frequencies range from ultra high frequency to super high frequency to extremely high frequency.
waves are further divided into two groups or bands such as very low frequency (