SCIENTIFIC

JOURNAL
ELECTROMAGNETI
C
FIELD
MAUI PANGCO
10 SATURN
Electromagnetic spectrum, the entire distribution of electromagnetic
radiation according to frequency or wavelength. Although all electromagnetic
waves travel at the speed of light in a vacuum, they do so at a wide range of
frequencies, wavelengths, and photon energies. The
electromagnetic spectrum comprises the span of all electromagnetic radiation
and consists of many subranges, commonly referred to as portions, such as
visible light or ultraviolet radiation. The various portions bear different names
based on differences in behaviour in the emission, transmission,
and absorption of the corresponding waves and also based on their different
practical applications. There are no precise accepted boundaries between any
of these contiguous portions, so the ranges tend to overlap.
The entire electromagnetic spectrum, from the lowest to the highest frequency
(longest to shortest wavelength), includes all radio waves (e.g.,
commercial radio and television, microwaves, radar), infrared radiation,
visible light, ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and gamma rays. Nearly all
frequencies and wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation can be used
for spectroscopy
Light As Electromagnetic Radiation
In spite of theoretical and experimental advances in the first half of the 19th
century that established the wave properties of light, the nature of light was
not yet revealed—the identity of the wave oscillations remained a mystery.
This situation dramatically changed in the 1860s when the Scottish
physicist James Clerk Maxwell, in a watershed theoretical treatment, unified
the fields of electricity, magnetism, and optics. In his formulation
of electromagnetism, Maxwell described light as a propagating wave of
electric and magnetic fields. More generally, he predicted the existence
of electromagnetic radiation: coupled electric and magnetic fields traveling as
waves at a speed equal to the known speed of light. In 1888 German
physicist Heinrich Hertz succeeded in demonstrating the existence of long-
wavelength electromagnetic waves and showed that their properties are
consistent with those of the shorter-wavelength visible light.
Electric and magnetic fields
The subjects of electricity and magnetism were well developed by the time Maxwell
began his synthesizing work. English physician William Gilbert initiated the careful
study of magnetic phenomena in the late 16th century. In the late 1700s an
understanding of electric phenomena was pioneered by Benjamin Franklin, Charles-
Augustin de Coulomb, and others. Siméon-Denis Poisson, Pierre-Simon Laplace,
and Carl Friedrich Gauss developed powerful mathematical descriptions of
electrostatics and magnetostatics that stand to the present time. The first connection
between electric and magnetic effects was discovered by Danish physicist Hans
Christian Ørsted in 1820 when he found that electric currents produce magnetic
forces. Soon after, French physicist André-Marie Ampère developed a mathematical
formulation (Ampère’s law) relating currents to magnetic effects. In 1831 the great
English experimentalist Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, in
which a moving magnet (more generally, a changing magnetic flux) induces
an electric current in a conducting circuit.
Faraday’s conception of electric and magnetic effects laid the groundwork
for Maxwell’s equations. Faraday visualized electric charges as producing fields that
extend through space and transmit electric and magnetic forces to other distant
charges. The notion of electric and magnetic fields is central to the theory of
electromagnetism, and so it requires some explanation. A field is used to represent
any physical quantity whose value changes from one point in space to another. For
example, the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere has a definite value at every point
above the surface of Earth; to specify the atmospheric temperature completely thus
requires specifying a distribution of numbers—one for each spatial point. The
temperature “field” is simply a mathematical accounting of those numbers; it may be
expressed as a function of the spatial coordinates. The values of the temperature field
can also vary with time; therefore, the field is more generally expressed as a function
of spatial coordinates and time: T(x, y, z, t), where T is the temperature field, x, y,
and z are the spatial coordinates, and t is the time.
Temperature is an example of a scalar field; its complete specification requires only
one number for each spatial point. Vector fields, on the other hand, describe physical
quantities that have a direction and magnitude at each point in space. A familiar
example is the velocity field of a fluid. Electric and magnetic fields are also vector
fields; the electric field is written as E(x, y, z, t) and the magnetic fieldas B(x, y, z, t).
Maxwell’s equations
In the early 1860s, Maxwell completed a study of electric and magnetic phenomena.
He presented a mathematical formulation in which the values of the electric and
magnetic fields at all points in space can be calculated from a knowledge of the
sources of the fields. By Faraday’s time, it was known that electric charges are the
source of electric fields and that electric currents (charges in motion) are the source of
magnetic fields. Faraday’s electromagnetic induction showed that there is a second
source of electric fields—changing magnetic fields. In a significant step in the
development of his theory, Maxwell postulated that changing electric fields are
sources of magnetic fields. In its modern form, Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory is
expressed as four partial differential equations for the fields E and B. Known
as Maxwell’s equations, these four statements relating the fields to their sources,
along with the expression for the forces exerted by the fields on electric
charges, constitutethe whole of classical electromagnetism.
Electromagnetic waves and the electromagnetic spectrum
Electromagnetic waves
A manipulation of the four equations for the electric and magnetic fields led Maxwell
to wave equations for the fields, the solutions of which are traveling harmonic waves.
Though the mathematical treatment is detailed, the underlying origin of the waves can
be understood qualitatively: changing magnetic fields produce electric fields, and
changing electric fields produce magnetic fields. This implies the possibility of
an electromagnetic field in which a changing electric field continually gives rise to a
changing magnetic field, and vice versa.
Electromagnetic waves do not represent physical displacements
that propagate through a medium like mechanical sound and water waves; instead,
they describe propagating oscillations in the strengths of electric and magnetic fields.
Maxwell’s wave equation showed that the speed of the waves, labeled c, is
determined by a combination of constants in the laws of electrostatics and

magnetostatics—in modern notation: where ε0, the permittivity of free space,

has an experimentally determined value of 8.85 × 10 −12 square coulomb
per newton square metre, and μ0, the magnetic permeability of free space, has a value
of 1.26 × 10−6 newton square seconds per square coulomb. The calculated speed, about
3 × 108 metres per second, agreed with the known speed of light. In an 1864 lecture
before the Royal Society of London, “A Dynamical Theory of the Electro-Magnetic
Field,” Maxwell asserted:
We have strong reason to conclude that light itself—including radiant heat and other radiation,
if any—is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves propagated through the electro-
magnetic field according to electro-magnetic laws.

Maxwell’s achievement ranks as one of the greatest advances of physics. For the
physicist of the late 19th century, the study of light became a study of an
electromagnetic phenomenon—the fields of electricity, magnetism, and optics were
unified in one grand design. While an understanding of light has undergone some
profound changes since the 1860s as a result of the discovery of light’s quantum
mechanical nature, Maxwell’s electromagnetic wave model remains completely
adequate for many purposes.
The electromagnetic spectrum
Heinrich Hertz’s production in 1888 of what are now called radio waves, his
verification that these waves travel at the same speed as visible light, and his
measurements of their reflection, refraction, diffraction, and polarization properties
were a convincing demonstration of the existence of Maxwell’s waves. Visible light is
but one example of a much broader set of phenomena—an electromagnetic spectrum
with no theoretical upper or lower limit to frequencies and wavelengths. While there
are no theoretical distinctions between electromagnetic waves of any wavelength, the
spectrum is conventionally divided into different regions on the basis of historical
developments, the methods of production and detection of the waves, and their
technological uses.
Sources of electromagnetic waves
The sources of classical electromagnetic waves are accelerating electric charges.
(Note that acceleration refers to a change in velocity, which occurs whenever a
particle’s speed or its direction of motion changes.) A common example is the
generation of radio waves by oscillating electric charges in an antenna. When
a charge moves in a linear antenna with an oscillation frequency f, the oscillatory
motion constitutes an acceleration, and an electromagnetic wave with the same
frequency propagates away from the antenna. At frequencies above the microwave
region, with a few prominent exceptions (see bremsstrahlung; synchrotron radiation),
the classical picture of an accelerating electric charge producing an electromagnetic
wave is less and less applicable. In the infrared, visible, and ultraviolet regions, the
primary radiators are the charged particles in atoms and molecules. In this regime
a quantum mechanical radiation model is far more relevant.
The speed of light
Early measurements
Measurements of the speed of light have challenged scientists for centuries. The
assumption that the speed is infinite was dispelled by the Danish astronomer Ole
Rømer in 1676. French physicist Armand-Hippolyte-Louis Fizeau was the first to
succeed in a terrestrial measurement in 1849, sending a light beam along a 17.3-km
round-trip path across the outskirts of Paris. At the light source, the exiting beam was
chopped by a rotating toothed wheel; the measured rotational rate of the wheel at
which the beam, upon its return, was eclipsed by the toothed rim was used to
determine the beam’s travel time. Fizeau reported a light speed that differs by only
about 5 percent from the currently accepted value. One year later, French
physicist Léon Foucault improved the accuracy of the technique to about 1 percent.

This measurement established the index of refraction of a material as the ratio of the

speed of light in vacuum to the speed within the material. The more general finding, that
light is slowed in transparent media, directly contradicted Isaac Newton’s assertion that
light corpuscles travel faster in media than in vacuum and settled any lingering 19th-
century doubts about the corpuscle–wave debate
The Michelson-Morley experiment
The German-born American physicist A.A. Michelson set the early standard for
measurements of the speed of light in the late 1870s, determining a speed within 0.02
percent of the modern value. Michelson’s most noteworthy measurements of the speed
of light, however, were yet to come. From the first speculations on the wave nature of
light by Huygens through the progressively more refined theories of Young, Fresnel,
and Maxwell, it was assumed that an underlying physical medium supports the
transmission of light, in much the same way that air supports the transmission of sound.
Called the ether, or the luminiferous ether, this medium was thought to permeate all of
space. The inferred physical properties of the ether were problematic—to support the
high-frequency transverse oscillations of light, it would have to be very rigid, but its lack
of effect on planetary motion and the fact that it was not observed in any terrestrial
circumstances required it to be tenuous and chemically undetectable. While there is no
reference to the properties of a supporting medium in the mathematics of Maxwell’s
electromagnetic theory, even he subscribed to the ether’s existence, writing an article
on the subject for the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica in the 1870s. In 1887
Michelson, in collaboration with American chemist Edward Morley, completed a precise
set of optical measurements designed to detect the motion of Earth through the ether as
it orbited the Sun.
The measurements in the Michelson-Morley experiment were based on the assumption
that an observer at rest in the ether would determine a different speed from an observer
moving through the ether. Because Earth’s speed relative to the Sun is about 29,000
metres per second, or about 0.01 percent of the speed of light, Earth provides a
convenient vantage point for measuring any change in the relative speed of light due to
motion. Using a Michelson optical interferometer, interference effects between two light
beams traveling parallel to, and perpendicular to, Earth’s orbital motion were monitored
during the course of its orbit. The instrument was capable of detecting a difference in
light speeds along the two paths of the interferometer as small as 5,000 metres per
second (less than 2 parts in 100,000 of the speed of light). No difference was found. If
Earth indeed moved through the ether, that motion seemed to have no effect on the
measured speed of light.
SCIENTIFIC
JOURNAL

MARK JHOMAR G. CAISIP

10 SATURN
The Electromagnetic Spectrum
For centuries, we have gazed at the night skies, wondering at the specks of light scattered across the
darkness, seeking ways to explore the cosmos. Spacecrafts and landers continue to explore our solar
system. However, until these missions can bring pieces of solar system objects back to Earth, we will not
have direct samples of other worlds, with the exception of several pounds of Moon rocks and the
meteorites that fall from the sky. Therefore, we learn almost everything about our vast universe remotely
through studying light. Collecting and analyzing light, the electromagnetic spectrum, is our key tool for
exploring the universe beyond our nearest neighbors in the solar system.

By exploring the electromagnetic spectrum with powerful new and specialized telescopes, scientists can tackle some
of the most fundamental human questions: “Where did we come from?” and “Are we alone?” NASA’s
Astronomical Search for Origins program uses tools of astronomy to seek answers to these questions and more.
Current and future Origins missions (see “On the Web”) are designed to explore the universe at infrared, visible, and
ultraviolet wavelengths in search of evidence that reveals the origin and evolution of the universe, stars, galaxies,
planets, and life. From these missions, educational and outreach programs are developed to peak students’ natural
curiosity about space and motivate interest in fundamental science concepts.
Extending human vision
Throughout history, most astronomy has been done at visible wavelengths, first with the naked eye, and
then with instruments designed to enhance our vision. Astronomical telescopes extended human vision to
see dimmer and more distant objects, always in the same light that the human eye senses. The resulting
discoveries changed our view of the universe and our place in it. In 1609–1610 Galileo discovered the
moons of Jupiter, craters on our own moon, spots on the Sun, the phases of Venus, and the multitude of
stars that comprise the Milky Way. Over the next three centuries, larger and better telescopes were
constructed, and astronomers demonstrated that the Earth orbits the Sun, and that the Sun is not at the
center of the “universe” (as our Milky Way galaxy was then known).

In the early twentieth century, Edwin Hubble used the most powerful telescope of his day to discover the
other “island universes” we now call galaxies. The Milky Way became one of many galaxies in a vast
expanding universe. At the same time, a variety of instruments that attach to telescopes were created and
they supplanted the human eye as the primary tool for observing the sky and vastly extended our view of
the universe beyond the range of visible light. For example, in addition to cameras that take images of
celestial objects, astronomers use spectrographs to separate light into its component wavelengths.
Features in the resulting spectrum help astronomers measure an object’s properties, such as its
temperature, composition, density, and motion. By using the tool of spectroscopy, we have identified
organic molecules in the gas and dust between the stars, found that water is common throughout the
universe, discovered more than 100 extrasolar planets, and measured the expansion of the universe.

Each of these discoveries occurred as larger and newer telescopes and affiliated technologies gave us a
more detailed view of the near and distant cosmos. Although early astronomical discoveries relied on
visible light, modern telescopes probe the universe across the continuum of the electromagnetic spectrum
from low- energy radio wavelengths, through infrared, visible, ultraviolet, x ray, and gamma ray energies.
Each type of electromagnetic energy reveals important clues about the nature of our universe, from the
first detection of the glow of the Big Bang at radio wavelengths to the discovery of black holes and other
exotic phenomena at x ray and gamma ray wavelengths.

Tools of astronomy

Using ground and space-based telescopes, along with innovative technology and interdisciplinary
research, NASA’s Astronomical Search for Origins missions seek to understand how today’s universe
came to be and what its future may be. Powerful new telescopes will allow us to detect faint infrared light
from the earliest stars and galaxies in the universe. These telescopes will probe the skies collecting
evidence about the environments where new stars and planets form. Characteristic features in the
spectrum of light emitted by atoms and molecules—spectral “fingerprints”—will allow us to identify the
chemical elements and molecules in the nearby and distant universe and to search for indicators of life on
other planets, such as oxygen, ozone, and methane. We will search for terrestrial planets beyond our
solar system by measuring the light from stars with high precision.

Through the integrated science of astrobiology, scientists are seeking to understand the history of life on
Earth and the conditions needed for life, while astronomers are designing and constructing the telescopes
that will reveal whether other planets exist that might sustain life. Our quest for knowledge takes us from
the most extreme environments on Earth to the distant stars and galaxies; from the biology of life to the
geology of nearby planets; and from the chemistry of interstellar atoms and molecules to the physics of
the early universe. The key to this exploration is collecting and analyzing, and making sense of the
information that arrives from the near and distant universe as electromagnetic energy, as light.

From NASA to the classroom

To help communicate the excitement and results of “Origins” research in a manner directly relevant to the
needs of the K–12 education community, NASA’s Office of Space Science has created the Origins
Education Forum—a consortium of the individual education and public outreach programs conducted by
each Origins mission, including NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. By surveying NSTA convention
attendees, Hubble Space Telescope’s Formal Education Program found that curriculum support tools
focusing on the electromagnetic spectrum are among the most frequently requested educational
materials. In light of these data, the importance of the electromagnetic spectrum in the exploration of our
universe, and the National Science Education Standards (NSES), the forum and its member missions have
created materials to support education in this area.
The Electromagnetic Spectrum poster (see insert) features images of the Whirlpool Galaxy obtained by a
variety of telescopes (including Hubble) at energies throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. The
poster’s classroom activities build on students’ personal observations of light and color from the natural
world, involving students in direct experiences with both visible and “invisible” regions of the
electromagnetic spectrum. The activities support the NSES Physical Science: Content Standard B:
Interactions of Energy and Matter (NRC 1996, p. 180) for grades 9–12.

One such classroom activity—“Chemical Detective” (see activity below)—can be used in conjunction with
The Electromagnetic Spectrum poster. Drawing upon chemistry, biology, geology, and other disciplines in
addition to physics and astronomy, the breadth of Origins science provides a unique opportunity to frame
classic activities for use in the integrated science classroom. Chemical Detective provides an example of
how the properties of the electromagnetic spectrum can be used in an inquiry-based chemistry setting, as
students are led from the familiar, continuous spectrum of white light to the discrete spectra of other light
sources.
 X-ray
RADIATION BEAM

WRITTEN BY: 

 Glenn Stark
See Article History

Alternative Titles: Röntgen radiation, X-radiation

X-ray, electromagnetic radiation of extremely short wavelength and high

frequency, with wavelengths ranging from about 10−8 to 10−12 metre and
corresponding frequencies from about 1016to 1020 hertz (Hz).
X-rays are commonly produced by accelerating (or decelerating) charged
particles; examples include a beam of electrons striking a metal plate in an X-
ray tube and a circulating beam of electrons in a synchrotron particle
accelerator or storage ring. In addition, highly excited atoms can emit X-rays
with discrete wavelengths characteristic of the energy level spacings in the
atoms. The X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum falls far outside the
range of visible wavelengths. However, the passage of X-rays through
materials, including biological tissue, can be recorded with photographic films
and other detectors. The analysis of X-ray images of the body is an extremely
valuable medical diagnostic tool.
X-rays are a form of ionizing radiation—when interacting with matter, they are
energetic enough to cause neutral atoms to eject electrons. Through this
ionization process the energy of the X-rays is deposited in the matter. When
passing through living tissue, X-rays can cause harmful biochemical changes
in genes, chromosomes, and other cell components. The biological effects
of ionizing radiation, which are complex and highly dependent on the length
and intensity of exposure, are still under active study (see radiation injury). X-
ray radiation therapies take advantage of these effects to combat the growth
of malignant tumours.
X-rays were discovered in 1895 by German physicist Wilhelm Konrad
Röntgen while investigating the effects of electron beams (then called cathode
rays) in electrical discharges through low-pressure gases. Röntgen uncovered
a startling effect—namely, that a screen coated with a fluorescent material
placed outside a discharge tube would glow even when it was shielded from
the direct visible and ultraviolet light of the gaseous discharge. He deduced
that an invisible radiation from the tube passed through the air and caused the
screen to fluoresce. Röntgen was able to show that the radiation responsible
for the fluorescence originated from the point where the electron beam struck
the glass wall of the discharge tube. Opaque objects placed between the tube
and the screen proved to be transparent to the new form of radiation; Röntgen
dramatically demonstrated this by producing a photographic image of the
bones of the human hand (see photograph). His discovery of so-called
Röntgen rays was met with worldwide scientific and popular excitement, and,
along with the discoveries of radioactivity (1896) and the electron (1897), it
ushered in the study of the atomic world and the era of modern physics.
X-ray
The German physicist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895 by accident
while studying cathode rays in a low-pressure gas discharge tube. (A few years
later J.J. Thomson of England showed that cathode rays were electrons emitted from
the negative electrode [cathode] of the discharge tube.) Röntgen noticed
the fluorescence of a barium platinocyanide screen that happened to lie near the
discharge tube. He traced the source of the hitherto undetected form of radiation to the
point where the cathode rays hit the wall of the discharge tube, and he mistakenly
concluded from his inability to observe reflection or refraction that his new rays were
unrelated to light. Because of his uncertainty about their nature, he called them X-
radiation. This early failure can be attributed to the very short wavelengths of X-rays
(10−8 to 10−11 cm), which correspond to photon energies from 200 to 100,000 eV. In 1912
another German physicist, Max von Laue, realized that the regular arrangement
of atoms in crystals should provide a natural grating of the right spacing (about 10 −8 cm)
to produce an interference pattern on a photographic plate when X-rays pass through
such a crystal. The success of this experiment, carried out by Walter Friedrich and Paul
Knipping, not only identified X-rays with electromagnetic radiation but also initiated the
use of X-rays for studying the detailed atomic structure of crystals. The interference
of X-rays diffracted in certain directions from crystals in so-called X-ray diffractometers,
in turn, permits the dissection of X-rays into their different frequencies, just as a prism
diffracts and spreads the various colours of light. The spectral composition and
characteristic frequencies of X-rays emitted by a given X-ray source can thus be
measured. As in optical spectroscopy, the X-ray photons emitted correspond to the
differences of the internal electronic energies in atoms and molecules. Because of their
much higher energies, however, X-ray photons are associated with the inner-shell
electrons close to the atomic nuclei, whereas optical absorption and emission are
related to the outermost electrons in atoms or in materials in general. Since the outer
electrons are used for chemical bonding while the energies of inner-shell electrons
remain essentially unaffected by atomic bonding, the identity and quantity of elements
that make up a material are more accurately determined by the emission, absorption, or
fluorescence of X-rays than of photons of visible or ultraviolet light.
The contrast between body parts in medical X-ray photographs (radiographs)
is produced by the different scattering and absorption of X-rays
by bones and tissues. Within months of Röntgen’s discovery of X-rays and his
first X-ray photograph of his wife’s hand, this form of electromagnetic radiation
became indispensable in orthopedic and dental medicine. The use of X-rays
for obtaining images of the body’s interior has undergone considerable
development over the years and has culminated in the highly sophisticated
procedure known as computed tomography (CAT; seeradiation).
Notwithstanding their usefulness in medical diagnosis, the ability of X-rays to
ionize atoms and molecules and their penetrating power make them a
potential health hazard. Exposure of body cells and tissue to large doses of
such ionizing radiation can result in abnormalities in DNA that may lead
to cancer and birth defects. (For a detailed treatment of the effects of X-rays
and other forms of ionizing radiation on human health and the levels of such
radiation encountered in daily life, seeradiation: Biological effects of ionizing
radiation.)
X-rays are produced in X-ray tubes by the deceleration of energetic electrons
(bremsstrahlung) as they hit a metal target or by accelerating electrons
moving at relativistic velocities in circular orbits (synchrotron radiation; see
above Continuous spectra of electromagnetic radiation). They are detected by
their photochemical action in photographic emulsions or by their ability to
ionize gas atoms. Every X-ray photon produces a burst of electrons and ions,
resulting in a current pulse. By counting the rate of such current pulses per
second, the intensity of a flux of X-rays can be measured. Instruments used
for this purpose are called Geiger counters.
X-ray astronomy has revealed very strong sources of X-rays in deep space. In
the Milky Way Galaxy, of which the solar system is a part, the most-intense
sources are certain double-star systems in which one of the two stars is
thought to be either a compact neutron star or a black hole. The ionized gas of
the circling companion star falls by gravitation into the compact star,
generating X-rays that may be more than 1,000 times as intense as the total
amount of light emitted by the Sun. At the moment of their
explosion, supernovae emit a good fraction of their energy in a burst of X-
rays.