I really can’t grasp the concept of waves. I can imagine it a bit for sound waves: a speaker has a surface that pushes air, and the moving air eventually pushes the membrane in our ears.
But I’m confused about wifi etc. What exactly is the thing that physically travels? Is it air or something else? Does it physically move in a wavy pattern?
Edit: thanks for all the answers! But damn I’m overwhelmed. It’s gonna take me days to read and fully understand the answers. But thanks!
In: 87
A wave is any thing that changes the average. Like the ocean is still until wind blows and it creates a wave, moving water up and down towards a direction. Light, radio, gamma, Wi-Fi, UV, Bluetooth etc. are all part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Which is, to simplify, a wave that has its own energy packets called photons. So depending on the frequency of the wave, they can either be massive, like radio waves, or small like gamma. Wi-fi, which is a microwave is in between. So when moving in the physical space, a larger wave would have more interference (like when you turn on a radio and you hear the fuzz or how old TVs had noise) but but since its a low frequency wave, it carries less energy. On the flip side, a higher frequency would carry more energy and information but for a shorter range before it becomes a longer wave then interference becomes are problem. (Interference can be anything…for radio it can be a mountain, particles in the wind, humidity etc. for microwaves it can be a thick wall, a person etc. also the waves are small so they can go in between atoms and their energy level is low enough that it doesn’t affect atomic structures.
Also the thing that travels is a photon when you look close, but its a wave when you zoom out. Wave-particle duality did a number to a lot of physicists. Also! It doesn’t need a medium. The wave moves faster in a vacuum.
(A photon is a massless particle that is a unit of energy. And it moves at the speed of light (which is also a photon).
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