Kind of a knowledge gap here, how does an electrical field generate a magnetic field and how does it produce stuff like radio waves?
In: Physics
Electric and magnetic fields are intrinsically linked together. This is a fundamental property of existence as we know it. When you have an electric field with oscillations, you necessarily always have a magnetic field with oscillations too. It’s not strictly correct to say that the electric field *generates* the magnetic field–the two are simply always present together.
The reason that we know these waves exist is because they follow from a famous set of equations called Maxwell’s Equations–and physics agrees, we can *see* these waves (literally). These equations were named after James Clerk (pronounced “Clark”) Maxwell, who corrected the equations that existed at the time in order to produce a unified theory of electromagnetism. One of the consequences of his equations is that you can solve them even in empty space–and they predict that, if you change the EM field, it will ripple out like waves. Those waves (necessarily) must travel at one and only one fixed speed: the speed of light.
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