why is light referred to as an electromagnetic wave?

Answer 1

Light can be thought of as both the particle theory and the wave theory. The smallest particles are called photons. It exhibits both particle and wave tendencies.
As a wave it travels at the "speed of light" 186,000 miles per sec., it reflects and refracts and diffracts and disperses as waves do. Speed =frequency times wavelength. The frequency and wavelength of visible light fits in as part of the electromagnetic spectrum between ultraviolet and infrared.

Answer 2

It is a rather complicated subject. Here is an edited excerpt from the source:

In 1884 James Clerk Maxwell, a Scottish mathematician and theoretical physicist, extended the mathematical formulation of earlier work on electricity and magnetism by Michael Faraday, André-Marie Ampère, and others into a linked set of differential equations (originally, 20 equations in 20 variables, later re-expressed in quaternion- and vector-based notations). These equations together describe the behavior of both the electric and magnetic fields, as well as their interactions with matter.

Maxwell showed that the equations predict the existence of waves of oscillating electric and magnetic fields that travel through empty space at a speed that could be predicted from simple electrical experiments; using the data available at the time, Maxwell obtained a velocity of 310,740,000 m/s. In his 1864 paper A Dynamical Theory of the Electromagnetic Field, Maxwell wrote, "The agreement of the results seems to show that light and magnetism are affections of the same substance, and that light is an electromagnetic disturbance propagated through the field according to electromagnetic laws."

Answer 3

Light is not a true electro magnetic wave
it has some of the properties

Radio and TV waves are true electromagnetic waves

Light is given the property due to the fact of..
A photon colliding with an electron will vanish
and the electron will gain energy
almost immediately the electron will lose the energy
and a photon will be emitted

It also has a wave property like a radio or tv wave
travels even in the vacuum of space (without matter)

Sound on the other hand requires matter to conduct over a distance

Trying to say light is an electro magnetic wave and not
declaring properties of light that isnt
would be like saying man and chimps are the same
similiar but uniquely different

Answer 4

Light is generated as an electromagnetic wave. Nothing will change that afterward.

Answer 5

Becouse light is an electromagnetic wave.

You may be confused about the quantum mechanical aproach of light as a photon (a particle).

Don't worry, that becouse of the duality principle of light.

When light it's moving in space it behaves like a wave, but when it interacts with matter behaves like a particle.