If sound waves travel by pushing particles back and forth, then how exactly do electromagnetic/radio waves travel through the vacuum of space and dense matter? Are they emitting… stuff? Or is there some… stuff even in the empty space that they push?
In: Physics
You have asked a very good question.
When the physicists a century ago started studying light as an electromagnetic wave, they expected to find some sort of medium for the waves to travel through.
The fact that there was no such medium, and that the speed at which they propagate (a.k.a. the spped of light) is constant regardless of the speed of the observer led to the Theory of Relativity.
Latest Answers