What is beyond Radio and Gamma waves on the EM Spectrum?

Question

I know the electromagnetic spectrum goes from long to short wavelengths, starting with radio and ending in gamma waves. What is beyond these two 'end' waves. Is there an upper or lower limit to the EM spectrum?

Do Radio and Gamma waves have the widest range of frequencies? And if so, do they have the widest range of attributes?

Answer 1

alpha waves

Answer 2

Hi,
Radio waves and gamma rays are generally the lower and upper limits on the electromagnetic spectrum. Aside from that, I'm pretty sure that infrared is about the widest band. It extends from a little over 10^10 Hz to over 10^14 Hz. A typical qualitative description of the electromagmentic spectrum would be: radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x-ray, gamma ray. Of course, there are cosmic rays that may have extremely high energies, but they are really charged particles and not radio waves.
I'm not sure what you mean by the widest range of attributes. These waves are all basically the same type of phenomenon. The energy of the photons increase as the the frequency increases. In the x-ray and gamma ray range, the penetrating power increases as the frequency increases. X-rays can even be used to radiograph steel parts for defects. Incidentally, in the higher frequencies, the wavelength is traditionally used to describe the waves rather than the frequency.

Hope this helps some.
FE

Answer 3

I believe that "gamma" radiation refers to all frequencies greater than X-rays.

Frequencies lower than VLF radio aren't really useful for broadcast transmission. I don't know of any names, but there might be some. In wires, such low (nonzero) frequencies are usually called AC--alternating current--because it is the movement of charge that is usually most noticeable. In the same sense, zero frequency is called DC. While not really a "wave", DC is often included as part of the E/M spectrum.

Still, you could probably call every nonzero frequency from UHF down "radio" and not get serious argument.

Which is greater? Depends. Gamma is an infinite band of frequencies, but only a finite band of wavelengths. Similarly, radio (or whatever else you might call the band that goes down to zero frequency) is a finite band of frequencies but an infinite band of wavelengths. Take your pick.

Answer 4

Electrostatic, Microwaves, Radiation