If Water travels through Matter and in Space there is none, how does light travel to Earth?

Question

No one's homework. Just asking. Thanks.

Answer 1

Water doesn't travel through matter, it is matter. Water could travel through space. It would actually be really fun to watch all the droplets scatter in every direction when you touched it.

Now to the meat of the question. There are two types of waves. Transverse waves and Longitudindal waves. All elctromagnetic waves (like light) are transverse waves and do not require a medium to travel through. Also note that a transerve wave's speed changes depending on what medium it is in (i.e. light travels slower in water... this is why refraction occurs). However, longitudinal waves (sound for instance) do require a medium to travel in. The reason for this is that longitudinal waves require a medium to compress to travel (which is why they are sometimes referred to as compression waves). A longitudinal wave is made up of compressed parts called "compressions" and elongated parts called "rarefactions". So longitudinal waves require a medium simply because they need something to compress and since nothing is available in space, they cannot travel through space (they need the compression because the wave motion is parallel to the wave direction). However, everything else can travel through space.

Answer 2

Water may travel through matter, but light can travel through space

(But you know, if you actually needed to, you could get water to travel through space too!)

Answer 3

I can believe that's not your homework. Because it doesn't make sense. Did you mean to say water? Water doesn't travel through matter, unless that matter has holes in it. And yes, there is stuff in space, just not all that much stuff.

Light is not water. It can be thought of as a wave, yes, but it's also a particle, and it travels though space as particles - photons.

Answer 4

If I answer this question, will there be peanut butter in my shoe tomorrow?
I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any sense.

Water doesn't really travel through Matter... it can associate with compounds, and get tied up in bonds, or flow through pores in rocks and things.

But it doesn't have anything to do with light and space.

Light is energy, a wave and/or a particle, and it can travel through space because there is nothing in the way.

Answer 5

Sound is a wave that travels by a actual medium. Like, air, or water. There might desire to be some thing there that enables sound to propagate, to verify that somebody to pay attention it. mild, on the different hand, is an electromagnetic wave. It "vibrates" with an electric and magnetic container, ninety tiers from one yet another. mild is an identical element as radio waves, microwaves, x-rays, and gamma rays, that can all travels by area.

Answer 6

water does not travel through matter and space light travels through matter and space

Answer 7

What you really mean to ask is, since kinetic energy needs a medium to propegate through, and there is nothing in space, then how does light propegate through space?

The answer is, light is it's own medium. It's kind of like a snail. The snail needs to crawl on a slick surface, and it produces it's surface itself...mucus.

Answer 8

If you can answer that question, you will get the Nobel Prize. Because nobody was able to answer that question in the nineteenth century, Einstein was inspired to create the Theory of Relativity.

Answer 9

it creates it's own medium through a combination of an electromagnetic field and something else.

Answer 10

Quantum teleportation.