How do radio waves travel through space?
Gamma, X, visible light, TV, and radio waves are all made up of the same particles…photons. Photons are the things that travel through space, they don’t need anything for those travels. In fact they travel faster through space than any other medium because they have nothing to run into and slow them down. The wave characterisitics, which we can see through the double slit experiment, come from two sources: group waves and wave functions. Group waves are formed somewhat like ripples on a pond, where the molecules of water are like the photons in group waves. Wave functions, which each individual photon possesses, are a really bizarre, but demonstrated, characteristic. Essentially the square of each wave function represents the probability density function of the photon’s location. These are the types of wave that result in the interference bands for the double slit experiment where a single photon at a time is shined through the two slits. Neither of these wave characteristics needs a
Radio waves are simply another spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, just as visible light is. This is a question that has baffled physicists for centuries. As you have noted, unlike other waves (i.e. sound, water waves) there is no medium in outer space for the radio waves to travel through. In the early 1900s, many scientists believed the “luminiferous ether”was acted as the medium in space which allowed EM waves to travel, however that has been proven to be false by the Michelson & Morley experiment. What really allows radio waves and all electromagnetic waves to travel through space is, as weird as it may sound, itself. EM waves are self-sustaining. You may know that a magnetic field is caused by a moving charge, and a moving magnetic source can induce an electrical charge. With these fundamental process in nature, a EM wave, which is composed of both a electrical wave, and a magnetic wave, help each other to proliferate through space without the need of a medium. The electrical w
Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic (light) wave. They move at the speed of light, which is 3*10^8m/s in a vacuum. Light doesn’t need a medium to move in like other waves do; it’s an interaction of magnetic and electrical fields stimulating the creation of each other. Things like sound move the medium around to produce a wave, but light created its own medium, as it were — electric and magnetic fields.
