What is the difference of a radio wave than a sine wave?
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Well the difference is like a drawing of a house versus an actual house.
A sine wave is a mathematical construct. It is useful because it is easy to work with mathematically speaking and it can be used to model and represent real life phenomena, like radio waves.
A radio wave is a disturbance or vibration in the electromagnetic field. It is “real” – it can be measured and analyzed. It has effects on physical objects – electromagnetic waves are used in microwave ovens to heat food, it is used for communication. All light is a form of electromagnetic waves. The term radio wave is simply a subset of electromagnetic wave frequencies that humans have given a name to (nature doesn’t care)
In order for humans to understand and use radio waves, there needs to be a way to represent them and ways to predict what happens. The best way appears to be through mathematics and using sine waves as a building block of our understanding.
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