Quote:
Originally Posted by sjastro
Q1 Yes. Q2 No.
And perhaps suprisingly radio waves will travel faster in the atmosphere compared to light.
It's based on Rayleigh scattering where scattering of a photon is a function of its wavelength. The shorter the wavelength, the greater the scattering and energy loss of the photon by atmospheric molecules.
Radio waves have much longer wavelengths than light.
It explains why the sky is blue.
Regards
Steven
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I agree that the two photons (visable light & radio) will reach point 'B' at different times in a given medium, with the radio arriving first, but that seems to me to be a result of their different paths traversed through that medium, which is caused by their respective wavelengths.
What I'm trying to determine is their speed in that medium, not the time difference between entering and exiting the medium.
Given the equation
'Wavelength x Frequence = C'
It seems to me that the refractive index of a given medium does not come into it when we are comparing their relative speed.
That is,
Wavelength(light) x Freq(light) = C
Wavelength(radio) x Freq(radio) = C
As you can see it is the product of each Wave & Freq that will always adjust itself to equal the SPEED of C. All the numbers can change except C.