According
to Miriam-Webster's Dictionary an electromagnetic
wave is "one of the waves that are propagated by simultaneous periodic
variations of electric and magnetic field intensity and that include
radio
waves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, X rays, and gamma
rays." What this actually means is that electromagnetic waves
have
both electric and magnetic fields that oscillate each are at a ninety
degree
angle from the other. The energy
produced by these waves is most commonly known as radiation, there are
varying
intensities of radiation. There are two
different types of radiation non-ionizing and ionizing the difference
between
the two is that ionizing radiation can change the molecules of an
electron which
can cause damage to tissues exposed to it; where as non-ionizing
radiation
doesn’t have the amount of energy to have this effect.
The
differences in electromagnetic waves and
their intensities, or energy levels, has to do with their frequency,
which is
the number of waves within a given unit of time.The
higher the frequency (υ) the more intense
the wave is and also shows us what the wavelength (λ), the distance
between two
peaks, is.The period is the time it
takes for one full wave to cycle and the amplitude is the distance from
the origin
to the minimum or maximum value.
Electromagnetic Frequency Spectrum (17)