/sci/ - Science & Math

Wouldn't the aether just be the electromagnetic field? Any absolute motion would just be motion relative to the EM field, no aether or special relativity required.

>>8966302

Waves don't have to be "made out of" anything. All they need is the "up and down", a wave is any pattern that propagates through space.

In classical physics, a radio wave is an oscillation in the electric and magnetic fields traveling through space. It propagates because a changing electric field causes magnetic fields and vice versa.

In quantum mechanics, a radio wave is what we observe when a large number of low-frequency photons are emitted in sync.

I am very confused about em waves and how they are supposed to describe light / em radiation.

In most descriptions I read that the waves oscillate so that the nodes travel at "the speed of light". But does this mean that the entire wave stretches to infinity and that length of the entire wave (not one oscillation) is infinite? How is this supposed to work because I can turn on a flash light and there is no interaction with something far away until some time later. The em wave description seems to indicate that this interaction should be instantaneous.

What is the shape of the em wave in the first instants after I turn on the flashlight before the light hits the wall?

How the fuck are electromagnetic waves transverse and longitudinal? How does that look like in reality?

>>6640289

It helps me to imagine the electromagnetic field as another dimension, sort of like an extra dimensional pond that is rippling