What do scientists mean when they say that light is an electro magnetic wave?

Question

I’ve seen one multiple educational videos that draw light as two orthogonal waves traversing through space. What is that trying to represent?What exactly is going up and down?

Furthermore, why do people often make the analogy that light acts like a ripple in a pond?

In: Physics

Answer 1

So specifically to the 2 orthogonal waves. That boils down to 2 if maxwell’s laws.

One says a changing magnetic field creates an electric field.

Another says a changing electric field creates a magnetic field.

Well when you go from no magnetic field to having one that’s a change so now you create an electric field and that’s a change so that creates a magnetic field which is also a change and on and on. Light is a self propagating electromagnetic wave. In the illustration one part they are showing you is electric field component and the orthogonal sine wave is the corresponding magnetic field component.