I’ve seen radio waved depicted in two different ways that seem at odds with one another. the first is something like [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/Wireless_tower.svg/75px-Wireless_tower.svg.png), with the waves spreading out from a point source in all directions. the second is like [this](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Cross_linear_polarization.gif/330px-Cross_linear_polarization.gif) with the radio wave moving in a “tube” constrained by its own parameters.
since we can’t see them, radio waves remain a bit abstract, but both of these visualizations can’t be correct at the same time… or can they? can someone as to what the real picture would “look” like?
many thanks!
In: 3
I think you should watch this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lL-hXO27Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lL-hXO27Q)
He is talking about magnets, but the idea is right. If I wanted to tell you what radio waves “look” like, we would eventually talk about what it even means to see, what light is, how light travels, refracts and affects your eyes, about how light is just electromagnetic radiation, and shit, we’ve described radio waves with radio waves!
I’ll give a second answer. If you were a thousand feet tall with eyes the size of satellite dishes normal light would be too small to see, but radio waves are way bigger, so antennas would glow like lightbulbs. Some would flicker brighter and dimmer to the sound of sports and local news (AM) and some would change color real fast to the tune of music (FM).
You’d be able to see the reflection of those antennas in anything big and flat like a brick wall, almost like it were a mirror. Some would shine right through your walls.
Fancier things like wifi would look crazy, and you’d see a line of bright dots hanging motionless across the sky, all the geostationary satellites for TV, Sirius, etc, and starlink and gps zooming across all day.
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