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Home , Extremely high frequency, Radar

Electromagnetic Spectrum • Scientists have found that many types of can be arranged together like the notes on a piano keyboard, to form a scale. • The 'low notes' have a low and a long . • The 'high notes' have a and a short wavelength. • When we say "wave", you might think of a wave on the sea. There, it's nice and obvious what's going on - the surface of the sea is vibrating up and down. • With a sound wave, it's the air particles that are vibrating. • So what's vibrating when an electromagnetic wave passes by? That's not so easy. Electromagnetic are vibrations of magnetic and electric fields. • So they don't need air in order to travel. They don't need anything to be there at all. How do the waves fit into the ? What do "wavelength" and "frequency" mean? Waves: How they're made

• Radio waves are made by various types of , depending on the wavelength. They are also given off by stars, sparks and , which is why you hear interference on your radio in a .

Uses of Radio Waves Dangers of Radio Waves – How They are Made

• Microwaves are basically radio waves, and are made by various types of transmitter. • In a , they're made by a transmitter chip and an , in a oven they're made by a "magnetron". • Their wavelength is usually a couple of centimeters. Stars also give off microwaves. Uses of Microwaves

• Microwaves cause and fat molecules to vibrate, which makes the substances hot. • So we can use microwaves to cook many types of food. • Mobile phones use microwaves, as they can be generated by a small antenna, which means that the phone doesn't need to be very big. The drawback is that, being small, they can't put out much power, and they also need a line of sight to the transmitter. This means that mobile phone companies need to have many transmitter towers if they're going to attract customers. • Microwaves are also used by fixed cameras, and for , which is used by , ships and forcasters. • The most common type of radar works by sending out bursts of microwaves, detecting the "echoes" coming back from the objects they hit, and using the time it takes for the echoes to come back to work out how far away the object is.

Dangers of Microwaves

• Prolonged exposure to microwaves is known to cause "cataracts" in your eyes, which is a clouding of the , preventing you from seeing clearly (if at all!) So don't make a habit of pressing your face against the to see if your food's ready! • Recent research indicates that microwaves from mobile phones can affect parts of your brain - after all, you're holding the transmitter right by your head. Other research is inconclusive, although there is a feeling that you're more vulnerable if you're young and your brain is still growing. So the advice is to keep calls short. That's right - we're supposed to advise teenagers not to spend too long on the phone. What could possibly go wrong there? • People who work on aircraft carrier decks wear special suits which reflect microwaves, to avoid being "cooked" by the powerful radar units in modern planes. – How it’s made Uses of Infrared Radiation

Dangers of Infrared Radiation

• The danger to people from too much Infra- radiation is very simple - overheating. Visible White Light

• White light is actually made up of a whole range of colors, mixed together. • We can see this if we pass white light through a glass prism - the light is bent ("refracted") more than the red, because it has a shorter wavelength - and we see a rainbow of colors. • This is called 'dispersion', and allows us to work out what stars are made of by looking at the mixture of in the light.

Wavelengths Uses of Visible Light Dangers of Visible Light

• Too much light can damage the retina in your eye. • This can happen when you look at something very bright, such as the . • Although the damage can heal, if it's too bad it'll be permanent.

UV – How it’s made

• -Violet light is made by special lamps, for example, on sun beds. It is given off by the Sun in large quantities. We call it "UV" for short. • The photo shows a UV lamp. The lamp gives off UV (which you can't see) as well as violet light (which you can see). • The UV attracts insects, which are electrocuted by high-voltage wires near the lamp - so they won't land on the food and contaminate it.

Uses of UV Radiation

• Uses for UV light include getting a sun tan, detecting forged bank notes in shops, and hardening some types of dental filling. • You also see UV lamps when they make your clothes glow. This happens because substances in washing powder "fluoresence" when UV light strikes them - they absorb the UV and then re-radiate the energy at a longer wavelength. The lamps are sometimes called "black " because we can't see the UV coming from them. • When you mark your possessions with a security marker pen, the ink is invisible unless you shine a UV lamp at it. • rays can be used to kill microbes. Hospitals use UV lamps to sterilize surgical equipment and the air in operating theatres. Food and drug companies also use UV lamps to sterilize their products. • Suitable doses of Ultraviolet rays cause the body to produce vitamin D, and this is used by doctors to treat vitamin D deficiency and some skin disorders.

Dangers of UV X-Rays • X-rays are waves, and carry a lot of energy. They will pass through most substances, and this makes them useful in medicine and industry to see inside things. • X-rays are given off by stars, and strongly by some types of nebula. • An X-ray works by firing a beam of electrons at a "target". If we X-Ray fire the electrons with enough energy, X-rays will be produced. http://www.youtube.com/ watch?feature=player_emb edded&v=0oy0fYeV764 Uses of X-Rays • X-rays are used by doctors to see inside people. The are managed by a trained x-ray technician. They pass easily through soft tissues, but not so easily through bones. We send a beam of X- Rays through the patient and onto a piece of film, which goes dark where X-Rays hit it. This leaves white patches on the film where the bones were in the way. • Sometimes a doctor will give a patient a "Barium Meal", which is a drink of Barium Sulphate. This will absorb X-rays, and so the patient's intestines will show up clearly on a X-Ray image. • X-Rays are also used in airport security checks, to see inside your luggage. They are also used by astronomers - many objects in the universe emit X-rays, which we can detect using suitable radio . • Lower energy X-Rays don't pass through tissues as easily, and can be used to scan soft areas such as the brain

Dangers of X-Rays

• X-Rays can cause cell damage and cancers. • This is why Radiographers in hospitals stand behind a shield when they X-ray their patients. Although the dose is not enough to put the patient at risk, they take many images each day and could quickly build up a dangerous dose themselves.

Gamma Rays

• Gamma rays are given off by stars, and by some radioactive substances. • They are extremely high frequency waves, and carry a large amount of energy. • They pass through most materials, and are quite difficult to stop - you need lead or concrete in order to block them out. Radioactivity is particularly damaging to rapidly dividing cells, such as cancer cells. This also explains why damage is done by radiother

Uses of Gamma Rays

Radioactivity is particularly damaging to rapidly dividing cells, such as cancer cells. This also explains why damage is done by radiotherapy to other rapidly dividing cells in the body such as the stomach lining (hence nausea) and hair follicles (hair tends to fall out.

Dangers of Gamma Rays

• Gamma rays cause cell damage and can cause a variety of cancers. • They cause mutations in growing tissues, so unborn babies are especially vulnerable.