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Radio waves in vacuum travel at the speed of light. [9] [10] When passing through a material medium, they are slowed depending on the medium's permeability and permittivity. Air is tenuous enough that in the Earth's atmosphere radio waves travel at very nearly the speed of light.
Radio propagation is the behavior of radio waves as they travel, or are propagated, from one point to another in vacuum, or into various parts of the atmosphere. [1]: 26‑1 As a form of electromagnetic radiation, like light waves, radio waves are affected by the phenomena of reflection, refraction, diffraction, absorption, polarization, and scattering. [2]
The speed of radio signals in vacuum, for example, is the speed of light, and so the velocity factor of a radio wave in vacuum is 1.0 (unity). In air, the velocity factor is ~0.9997. In electrical cables, the velocity factor mainly depends on the insulating material (see table below).
Radio waves travel at the speed of light in vacuum [29] and at slightly lower velocity in air. [ 30 ] The other types of electromagnetic waves besides radio waves, infrared , visible light , ultraviolet , X-rays and gamma rays , can also carry information and be used for communication.
However, at energies too low to excite water vapor, the atmosphere becomes transparent again, allowing free transmission of most microwave and radio waves. [51] Finally, at radio wavelengths longer than 10 m or so (about 30 MHz), the air in the lower atmosphere remains transparent to radio, but plasma in certain layers of the ionosphere begins ...
Signal velocity is usually equal to group velocity (the speed of a short "pulse" or of a wave-packet's middle or "envelope"). However, in a few special cases (e.g., media designed to amplify the front-most parts of a pulse and then attenuate the back section of the pulse), group velocity can exceed the speed of light in vacuum, while the signal ...
The higher energy (shortest wavelength) ranges of UV (called "vacuum UV") are absorbed by nitrogen and, at longer wavelengths, by simple diatomic oxygen in the air. Most of the UV in the mid-range of energy is blocked by the ozone layer, which absorbs strongly in the important 200–315 nm range, the lower energy part of which is too long for ...
Maxwell's equations may be combined to demonstrate how fluctuations in electromagnetic fields (waves) propagate at a constant speed in vacuum, c (299 792 458 m/s [2]). Known as electromagnetic radiation , these waves occur at various wavelengths to produce a spectrum of radiation from radio waves to gamma rays .