If light traveled far enough, would it get “red-shifted” to the point of no longer being a wave?

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From what I understand, red-shifting is when light from a distant source travels through expanding space which stretches out the wave making it appear more red by the time it reaches earth.

So if a light wave traveled far enough, would it “red-shift” all the way down the EM spectrum eventually losing its waviness and becoming a straight line?

In: Physics

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I think you’re mistaken on quite what it means to be redshifted. It doesn’t change the amplitude of the wave (the up-and-down measurement), just the wavelength and frequency. So maybe it would eventually appear as a flat line to measuring devices that are less than infinitely sensitive, but theoretically no it could never become perfectly flat.

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