Why exactly does wifi not cause cancer / be really unhealthy for you?
NOTE: This is for my mother as she is really really worried about this especially with Routers and Phones
In: Technology
WiFi routers and telephones typically operate at frequencies between 0.7 and 5 gigahertz. (Technically there are a number of very specific bands allocated by standards organizations in different countries, for these applications.)
What’s not widely understood is that liquid water and thus your own body itself, is a strong source of radio waves in the range of Ghz.
This is by virtue of being warmer than absolute zero. This is thermal radiation, although the peak emissivity occurs farther up the spectrum in the range of infrared. Some weather satellites monitor these frequencies as a means of analyzing sea surface temperatures.
For this reason rainy weather interferes with cell phone transmission.
Overall the human body radiates roughly 50-100W depending on activity level, overall skin temperature, and body size. In the range of GHz the body emits several watts of power.
A typical WiFi router has a max power of about 0.5 watts. Usual level is around 100mW or 0.1 W. The main difference is the emissions are concentrated in a very narrow band with these devices while the body’s emissions are broad spectrum.
So the idea that radio wave emissions from a WiFi router are somehow more dangerous than the body’s own thermal emissions which are more powerful, is ignorant luddite-type nonsense.
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