All around you right this second you are surrounded by electromagnetic radiation.

You might better know this by other names such as light, radio waves, microwaves,

x-rays, and ultraviolet arrays.

But fundamentally, they're all variations of the same phenomenon

and are all part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Learn more about the electromagnetic spectrum

and how different wavelengths can behave very differently on this episode of

everything everywhere daily. Book your ticket to happiness with Sun Express Airlines. As I mentioned in the introduction, electromagnetic radiation has many different names.

Radio waves, microwaves, infrared and ultraviolet radiation, x-rays and gamma rays are all different

manifestations of light.

Visible light that we can see actually makes up a very small part of the total electromagnetic spectrum.

So for the purposes of this episode, if I refer to light, I'll actually be referring to any electromagnetic radiation.

Electromagnetic radiation has properties that are similar to a particle, and they also have properties that are similar to a wave.

For the purpose of this episode, I'll mostly be speaking in terms of waves, but I will occasionally

reference a photon.

A photon is just a single unit or a quanta of energy that's emitted.

The length of a wave or the wavelength defines the electromagnetic spectrum.

If you can imagine a sign wave that goes up and down, the peaks in that wave will grow further apart if you stretch out the wave.

They have a longer wavelength, the distance between the peaks of the wave.

The wave will have a shorter wavelength if you can

compress the wave. The wavelength of light is inexorably tied up with the wave's

frequency. The frequency is just the number of times that a wave goes up and down

per second and it's measured

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