Does data transmitted wirelessly have mass, is it visible on any spectrum? Please explaing why for either yes or no, I’m confused.
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Depends on the way data is transmitted wirelessly. But in general they use things that can’t be “sensed” by humans such as Infrared light or radio waves. But to put it simply is like trying to measure “invisible” light, or “inaudible” sound.
Basically all data we transmit is by using the electromagnetic spectrum. This is just light but at all kinds of different wavelengths/frequencies that we can’t see. These wavelengths also have different properties, like being able to go through walls etc.
So does light -> Photons have mass? No.
Radio waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
They’re “visible” by the appropriate detector since the receiver needs to “see” them in order to get the data back out.
It depends on precisely what you mean by “mass”. Relativity tells us that mass and energy are the same, so in that sense anything with energy has mass in some sense.
Usually, if you use that term, you mean *rest* or *invariant* mass, which is what corresponds to mass in classical physics and is the mass(-energy) an object would have it it were not moving. Light (and therefore radio waves) have zero *rest* mass, but have non-zero mass-energy.
No. Wireless transmission means electromagnetic waves such as radio wave or microwaves. Electromagnetic radiation does not have mass. I’m not sure what you mean by “is it visible on any spectrum?” Electromagnetic radiation is detectable (which I think what you mean by “visible”) with a detector that is capable of receiving signals in that spectrum. In other words, wifi uses microwaves, so any device that connects via wifi can detect microwaves.
Basically all data we transmit is by using the electromagnetic spectrum. This is just light but at all kinds of different wavelengths/frequencies that we can’t see. These wavelengths also have different properties, like being able to go through walls etc.
So does light -> Photons have mass? No.
How does a sail powered by a laser work if there is absolutely no mass to the photons?
How does a sail powered by a laser work if there is absolutely no mass to the photons?
How does a sail powered by a laser work if there is absolutely no mass to the photons?
You can send transmissions via visible light, though generally people don’t because a rapidly pulsing 600nm band signal (orangish red light) from a tower would annoy a lot of people and be stopped by pretty thin barriers. It also isn’t quite as convent or easy to make directional as a microwave transmission.
Light has no resting mass, so the signals aren’t heavy, even as whole movies, novels, cat pictures and naughty text messages fly past you all day.
Though not wireless old toslink audio cables used fiber optic cable to carry visible light. You could see the red light blinking when in operation, ‘seeing’ the data.
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