Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> 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.

There's another thing that takes effect in these scenario, and that's quantum
effects: Electromagnetic waves transmit energy in "standardized" packets, with
the energy of a single packet being dependent on the wavelength. Similarly, the
energy levels in whatever it interacts with are quantized, and in order to
interact, the EM packet's energy dose must be fitting to bring the "target's"
energy to a higher "valid" level.

Radio waves are too weak to interact with atomic particles presently bound to an
individual atom, and therefore can only interact with free electrons - which is
why they zip straight through insulating materials without effect, but readily
interact with conductors.

Visible light waves are strong enough to "kick" around electrons within an
individual atom, but they're too weak to kick it "loose" and impart any excess
energy to it as kinetic energy, so they are particularly picky what materials
they will interact with.

X-Rays are strong enough to kick eletrons loose from atoms, and any excess
energy will simply be converted to kinetic energy of the electron, so they will
interact with everything, just depending on the material density.


> 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.

Try, and you'll see it's not true. In water, the ratio of pass-through vs.
bounce is primarily a matter of size of holes vs. size of non-holes.

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