Why is light, radio, etc called electromagnetic radiation?

Question

Ashamed to admit it, but if I ever knew I forgot. Why is light, radiowaves, X-Rays etc called electromagnetic radiation when they are not influenced by either electricity or magnetism?

Answer 1

According to Maxwell's equations, a time-varying electric field generates a magnetic field and vice versa. Therefore, as an oscillating electric field generates an oscillating magnetic field, the magnetic field in turn generates an oscillating electric field, and so on. These oscillating fields together form an electromagnetic wave.Since light is an oscillation, it is not affected by travelling through static electric or magnetic fields in a linear medium such as a vacuum. In nonlinear media such as some crystals, however, interactions can occur between light and static electric and magnetic fields - these interactions include the Faraday effect and the Kerr effect.

Answer 2

Light, radiowaves, X-rays, etc are all the same in essence (all electromagnetic radiation). They difference between all of them is the frequency of the waves. You have a part wrong though: "they are not influenced by either electricity or magnetism"

It turns out they are influences by electricity and magnetism. For one, electricity and/or magnetism is what forms all these waves. For example, electricity sent into an antenna forms an electromagnetic field (which is basically the same as electromagnetic radiation). This field can then be sampled by an antenna elsewhere, which converts the electromagnetic radiation back into electrical energy which eventually makes its way to a speaker and produces the music you hear over the radio.

Answer 3

Historical reason: changing electric and magnetic fields (more specifically, sinusoidally varying electric and magnetic fields).

The radiation is a way of transferring electricity and magnetism. The catch is instead of a fixed voltage or a magnetic field like you would get from a battery or a bar magnet, you get oscillatory ac-type fields.

Antennae in which electrons jostle back and forth are the classical electromagnetic field sources.

Answer 4

Electromagnetic (EM) radiation is a self-propagating wave in space with electric and magnetic components. These components oscillate at right angles to each other and to the direction of propagation, and are in phase with each other. Electromagnetic radiation is classified into types according to the frequency of the wave: these types include, in order of increasing frequency, radio waves, microwaves, terahertz radiation, infrared radiation, visible light, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays and gamma rays.

more on ;wikipedia/electromagnetic radiation.
good luck

Answer 5

Good question!
Not influenced?
1. Have you 'seen' a radio wave penetrate say aluminum foil?
2. X-Rays are bouncing off atoms.
3. Electro magnetic wave is a three dimensional vector ... so we need a tree dimensional vector to act in the apposition of its components in order to influence it. Since it is a wave such small thing as frequency matter too.

Answer 6

while a particle features capability, it supplies out extra capability contained in this style of sunshine.Now the sunshine is made up of tiny debris stated as photon,which posses translational vibration of shorter wavelength and much greater frequency than a audible sound. So the waves are greater lively than sound we are able to pay attention.This waves produce electromagnetic field around it.while this waves passes it circulate a number of it extremely is capability and it does produce alternating modern in a conductor comparable as a magnet do.