What are radio waves and how do they carry sound?
Invisible Wave Riders
What are radio waves and how do they carry sound?
You flip a switch and voices pour out of a speaker — news from across town, music from across the ocean, all traveling through the air around you right now. But when you wave your hand through that air, you feel nothing. So what exactly is a radio wave, and how does it carry a song?
Start with something simpler: drop a pebble in a pond. Ripples spread outward in circles — waves of energy moving through water. The water itself doesn't travel to the edge; each bit of water just bobs up and down, passing the wave to its neighbor. A radio wave works the same way, except it's a ripple in something you can't see: electromagnetic fields that fill all of space.
