Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum longer than infrared light. Radio waves have frequencies from 300 GHz to as low as 3 kHz, and corresponding wavelengths from 1 millimeter to 100 kilometers. Like all other electromagnetic waves, they travel at the speed of light. Naturally occurring radio waves are made by lightning, or by astronomical objects. Artificially generated radio waves are used for fixed and mobile radio communication, broadcasting, radar and other navigation systems, communications satellites, computer networks and innumerable other applications. Different frequencies of radio waves have different propagation characteristics in the Earth's atmosphere; long waves may cover a part of the Earth very consistently, shorter waves can reflect off the ionosphere and travel around the world, and much shorter wavelengths bend or reflect very little and travel on a line of sight.
Read more about Radio Waves: Discovery and Utilization, Propagation, Speed, Wavelength and Frequency, Radio Communication, In Medicine
Other articles related to "radio waves, waves, wave, radio":
... Thidé (born in Gothenburg, Sweden) is a Swedish physicist who studies radio waves and other electromagnetic radiation in space, particularly their interaction with matter and fields ... electromagnetic emissions stimulated by powerful radio waves in the ionosphere during experiments in August 1981 at the EISCAT facility in Tromsø, Norway ... For the first time it was shown that the plasma turbulence excited by powerful radio waves in the ionosphere radiates secondary electromagnetic radiation that can be detected and analysed on ...
... Radio waves are affected by just about everything around us ... Magnetic waves can pass through almost anything, even rock ... falls off as 1/r, whereas the strength of a magnetic wave falls off far faster at the rate of 1/r³ ...
... Radio frequency (RF) energy has been used in medical treatments for over 75 years generally for minimally invasive surgeries and coagulation, including the treatment of sleep apnea ... Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) uses radio frequency waves to generate images of the human body ...
... Radio wavelengths are much longer than optical wavelengths, and the observing stations in radio astronomical interferometers are correspondingly ... The very large distances do not always allow any usable transmission of radio waves received at the telescopes to some central interferometry point ... this reason many telescopes instead record the radio waves onto a storage medium ...
... are shielded by seawater from all ordinary radio signals, and therefore are cut off from communication with military command authorities while submerged ... The lower the frequency, the deeper radio waves are able to penetrate ocean water ... Waves in the very low frequency (VLF) range of 3 kHz to 30 kHz are able to penetrate to a depth of about 10 to 30 meters, and since WWII navies have used VLF transmitters to communicate with submarines ...
Famous quotes containing the words waves and/or radio:
“There is no sea more dangerous than the ocean of practical politics—none in which there is more need of good pilotage and of a single, unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high.”
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“A bibulation of sports writers, a yammer of radio announcers, a guilt of umpires, an indigence of writers.”
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