If an electromagnetic waves frequency is generated by the change of voltage / current in a wire  or a atom decaying to get gamma waves.    What is the highest frequency possible give the faster the change in voltage/currect the higher frequencies generate?  So as the frequency goes up and as the change in voltage/current becomes instant, (if possibe) what is the state on the wave between the upper and lower limits of the wave? Is this a state possible?
122620
In an alternating current, the flow of electric charge periodically reverses direction, and the number of times it does that is called the frequency of the current. However, if the frequency of an AC is made infinite, would any current flow? I asked this question to my school teacher and he was unable to provide me with an answer unfortunately.  If I consider a horizontal wire, through which an AC is flowing, then I can say that an electron in the wire is moving 50 times left and 50 times right, if the frequency is assumed to be 50Hz. It seems to me that if I increase the frequency, the displacement of the electrons in both the directions, that is left and right, will gradually decrease, and finally become 0, when frequency is infinite, thus making I = 0.  What have I got wrong?
25007
I've got a few questions on induction and electromagnetic fields. My current understanding of induction and electromagnetic fields is that, when electricity/current flows through a wire, it creates an electromagnetic field. If you twist that wire into a coil then you can concentrate that field. You can then induce current into a different coil by placing it inside of the electromagnetic field created by the first coil.  So here are my questions:  Q1. Does the electromagnetic field contain any energy?  EDITED QUESTION  Q2. Electromagnetic fields are the same as waves, so does that mean that when current is induced, they get the energy from electromagnetic waves being exchanged, or do they induce current directly from the electromagnetic field?   Q3. If electromagnetic fields and waves are the same, then doesn't that mean that you can induce current from waves? Therefore transferring electricity over long distances?  Q4. What spectrum of light are the electromagnetic waves that are in a field created by electricity?  Q5. Finally, why is it not possible to induce current from the Earth's magnetic field? I thought Maxwell said that electric fields and magnetic fields were the same thing.   Thank you to anyone who answers.  Edited Q2: So my original question (although asked poorly) still stands. Where does the current that gets induced in the secondary coil come from? How does the electricity transfer from the primary coil to the secondary? For example, is it taken from the stored energy in the e.m field? Does the field just act as a bridge between the 2 coils? Or do the 2 coils exchange e.m waves which carry the electricity that is being transferred from coil 1 to coil 2? Or is it none of these things and something completely different?
68624
in classical physics frequency represents how many cycles in one unit time, but I do not know how we define a frequency for a particle? what does it mean for a particle to have a frequency, the book I read it from just says Energy is proportional to the frequency of the photon but where is frequency?
107034
It's well known among physics people that the motional emf generated in a loop of wire is minus the time derivative of the magnetic flux through the loop:  \begin{equation} \varepsilon = -\frac{d\Phi}{dt}. \end{equation}  But if an emf is generated in a conducting loop of wire, then there'd be a current which would result in a magnetic field which would induce a counter emf. Is my understanding correct? If so, how does one keep track of the net emf in a conducting loop of wire when emfs create counter emfs which create counter counter emfs, etc., etc.?
65753
They say the frequency of a wave is its fundamental character, thus remain constant throughout its propagation regardless the medium through which it travels. Could anyone explain why frequency of wave is fundamental character but its wavelength isn't?
34240
The situation is this.. I am performing a photoelectric effect experiment - just the usual - evacuated glass tube containing two metal electrodes connected to an external source of DC voltage (say an alkaline cell) and ammeter in series. I shine a light on one of the electrodes - the frequency is more than enough to cause eject photoelectrons, and the voltage of the cell opposes the electrons which are trying to get to the other electrode. The question is this - what happens to the current on increasing the intensity of light while keeping no. of photons falling on the electrode constant (in other words increasing the frequency)?   Does the current remain the same because the no. of photons falling on the electrode is constant and so no. of electrons being ejected is constant? Or does it increase because the electrons have more kinetic energy, ie, they are moving faster towards the other electrode so that the $t$ (time) term in $I$ = $q$/$t$ is less ($q$ remains constant because no. of electrons being ejected is still the same)?   This question appeared in one of my tests and the answer key says that the current remains constant but think that case 2 is correct and current would increase, which is why I asked this question.  Thanks.
79050
I'm sure this is a trivial question for someone who knows something about electromagnetic radiation, but: how do experimenters measure the wavelength/frequency of light? For example, how do we know that red light has $650-700~\text{nm}$ wavelength?
105315
What exactly is causing the electric discharge coming from the clouds to emit light while traveling through the air. I've read and thought about it a little but with my current knowledge I cant really figure what is happening at a subatomic level. In other words, what causes the emission of photons during lightning. What I want to know is, is there some sort of collisions taking place that produces the photons we see, or is it some other interaction that is causing it?. I don't know too much about particle physics, I've only read a couple of pages in the Introduction to Elementary Particles by Griffihts. So if you could keep the answer simple then that would be great.
112974
It's been happening to me for years. I finally decided to ask users who are better with "practical physics" when I was told that my experience – that I am going to describe momentarily – prove that I am a diviner, a psychic, a "sensibil" as we call it. The right explanation clearly needs some electrodynamics although it's "everyday electrodynamics" and theoretical physicists are not trained to quickly answer such questions although each of us has probably solved many exercises that depend on the same principles.    When I am biking under the power lines – which probably have a high voltage in them – I feel a clear tingling shocks near my buttocks and related parts of the body for a second or so when I am under a critical point of the power lines. It is a strong feeling, not a marginal one: it feels like a dozen of ants that are stinging me at the same moment. It seems almost clear that some currents are running through my skins at 50 Hz. I would like to know the estimate (and calculation or justification) of the voltage, currents etc. that are going through my skin and some comparison with the shock one gets when he touches the power outlet.  Now,    my bike that makes this effect particularly strong is a ; the speed is about 20 km/h and the velocity is perpendicular to the direction of the current in the power line; the seat has a hole in it and there is some metal – probably a conducting one – just a few centimeters away from the center of my buttocks. It's plausible that I am in touch with the metal – or near touch; my skin is kind of sweating during these events and the liquid isn't pure water so it's probably much more conductive than pure water; the temperature was 22 °C today, the humidity around 35%, clear skies, 10 km/h wind;  may be between 22 kV and 1 MV and at 50 Hz, the altitude is tens of meters but I don't really know exactly.   What kind of approximation for the electromagnetic waves are relevant? What is the strength? How high currents one needs?   Does one need some amplification from interference etc. (special places) to make the effect detectable? (I only remember experiencing this effect at two places around Pilsen; the most frequent place where I feel it is near Druztová, Greater Pilsen, Czechia.)   Is the motion of the wheels or even its frequency important? Is there some resonance?  Does the hole in the seat and the metal play any role? Just if you think that I am crazy, other people are experience the effect (although with different body parts), see e.g.  and .  seems to suggest that the metals and electromagnetic induction is essential for the effect but the presentation looks neither particularly comprehensive nor impartial enough.  An extra blog discussion on this topic is here:
41458
When a light wave enters a medium with a higher refractive index (e.g. from air to standard glass) and its speed decreases, why does that make it refract/bend?  I understand that wavelength decreases and frequency stays the same and therefore its speed decreases, but I can't find anywhere whatsoever why the speed decrease cause the wave to refract. So could someone please explain this?
44215
As a start I assumed  which is the reciprocal of  as the frequency upper limit, but not so sure. On the other hand, is there a lower limit? Can we consider the reciprocal of our universe as a theoretical limit which is not yet limited, or just assume 0? I am just curious to know if you have any ideas with thanks.
72692
From what I know, In electromagnetic waves, the components electric field and magnetic field generate each other i.e. magnetic field generated from moving electric charge generates another electric field and which also generates another magnetic field and so on thus, creating an electromagnetic field. So each of them gets weaker with distance which results in weaker EMF. Am I correct here?
28417
In reading through old course material, I found the assignment (my translation):     Show that a single photon cannot produce an electron-positron pair, but needs additional matter or light quanta.   My idea was to calculate the wavelength required to contain the required energy ($1.02$ MeV), which turned out to be $1.2\times 10^{-3}$ nm, but I don't know about any minimum wavelength of electromagnetic waves. I can't motivate it with the conservation laws for momentum or energy either.  How to solve this task?
70840
Say, I want to limit the rise time of my digital signal edges to avoid dealing with transmission line effects.   How do I determine the maximum frequency of harmonics in my signal knowing that my rise time is, say 5ns?  How do I determine corner frequency of my low pass filter knowing that hold time on the receiver chip is, say 10ns?  In wikipedia I've found the formula   $$ BW=\frac{0.34}{t_{rise}} $$   does it apply in this case?     Edit  I failed to make myself clear, so I'll try to explain my line of thought.  Say, I have a 30HMz signal and my trace length is well below 1/10 of the wavelength. So I don't have to deal with transmission line effects in respect to that. But my edges are steep - 5ns. This adds some high frequency components into my signal that potentially will suffer from transmission line effects.   My idea is that I slow down edge transitions up to a point where I don't have to deal with transmission line phenomena. The question is twofold:    how do I calculate fastest rise/fall time that with the given trace length would enable me to traeat my circuit as "lumped"? how do I slow down the rise/fall time?   Rise/fall time is time for voltage to change from 10% to 90% of max value. I know how to calculate the approximate speed of signal on FR4 board.
45511
My question and context with explanation are given below. Thank you in advance.   Faraday’s Law () states that a time-changing magnetic field vector induces a curl of the Electric field around that point. However it does not specify how quickly the necessary spatial gradient is developed in the Electric Field to satisfy that curl. Of course, the Electric Field vectors around that point cannot just jump to the required values instantaneously in accompaniment as soon as the magnetic field starts changing at a fixed rate, since it is required that the Electric Field has a sensible rate of change to in turn induce a curl of the magnetic Field and continue the propagation of the wave. It would seem the exact rates at which the Electric and Magnetic Fields are changing is critical in the mechanism of an EM wave’s propagation. How would I then calculate the rate of change of E somewhere along the wave given I know the rate of change of the B vector that began it, and given the wave is restricted to one dimension for simplicity? There should after all be some delay in how the EM wave moves from point to point in space, seeing as it moves at the finite speed of causality (3*10^8 m/s), as shown in the first image:    Some of my ideas so far have been that perhaps the rate of change of E is determined such that it exactly cancels the growth of the time-changing E vector that gave rise to a curl of B before, which developed at such a rate to induce a curl of E, which demands this rate of change of E which I am talking about now. In this way the wave might level out the growth of the fields in its wake and spread the change further outwards, in the same way smoothening out a crease spreads it elsewhere. However I am stuck on how to show this rigorously.  I am open to any difficulty of maths, so long as the answer provides the explanation. Below are some diagrams to help visualize what I am talking about:    Faraday's Law requires that a curl of E is developed, which under these restrictions requires a spatial gradient of E to appear across that point. Since the field across that point was previously in some other state, it is required that the Electric Field vectors that are infinitesimally close to that point undergo a rate of change through time to achieve the desired state of curl. The question is, how quickly is this desired state of curl achieved?
23555
We all know that the amount of current flowing b/w the plates is independent of the frequency. If I were to ask why doesn't it depend then you'd probably say that it depends on the number of electrons rather than the frequency or you might show me a current vs frequency graph.  But here is my theoretical argument. Electric current is defined as the amount of charge flowing through a point/space/wire per unit time. Let I be current due to photo electrons ejected by photons of some frequency. Now if I would increase the frequency, the kinetic energy of the ejected electron would increases, therefore it will move faster and therefore contribute more current (charge will through the same point many times per unit time) . Thereby, giving a net current greater than I.  What is wrong with my argument?  After thinking a lot, I came up with a possible reason. However fast the electrons may move, but when they hit the metal plate, they would lose their velocity and start moving in drift velocity. Now there is a problem with this argument. If this were to be true then I should expect to see a big chunk of extra electrons getting stuck at the anode.  If my reasoning was correct, then why can't I see a big charge buildup at the anode.
93916
If current I is given by I = nAev, where n is the number of electrons per unit volume, A is the area, e is the charge of an electron and v is the velocity of the electron, it means that current increases with increase in velocity of the electron which increases with the frequency of light incident on the metal emitter. Why then doesn't saturation current increase with increase in frequency?