Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> On the other hand, radio waves are *so* big they go thru lots of inter-atom 
>> holes at once (like a wave going past a row of pylons holding up a pier) and 
>> hence will go thru walls where visible light won't.
> 
>   I don't think it's as simple as the wavelength determining how well
> electromagnetic radiation can traverse through matter. For example, x-rays
> have a shorter wavelength than visible light, yet x-rays have more penetration
> through matter.

I think the way it works is this:

X-rays actually are small enough to go between the atoms (altho they'll 
still interact with the electrons, which is why metal still stops them, 
having a "sea" of electrons on the surface).

Visible light hits (most) atoms and gets absorbed, reflected, etc.

Radio waves are physically bigger than the atoms (and the whole house, for 
that matter) so they basically are ghosting along like a car through air.

If you have a stiff screen with water waves going thru, waves much smaller 
than the holes will go thru, and waves much bigger than the holes will go 
thru all the holes at once and reform on the other side. Waves bigger than 
the holes but smaller than two holes will mostly bounce.

The higher the frequency, the "smaller" the photon is physically (as in, the 
more precisely you can know its position).

At least, that's the naive layman understanding I use to sound like I know 
what I'm talking about in newsgroups. ;-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

Post a reply to this message