Radio Waves — Transporting Data on Invisible Waves (Part 1)

What is a radio wave? To answer that, we go back to two forces people had known about for a very long time.

Electricity and magnetism.

For most of human history, these seemed like completely separate things.

Electricity was sparks and lightning.

Magnetism was the force in a magnet, the pull that turns a compass needle north.

There seemed to be no connection between them.

And for a long time, no one thought there was.

But in the early 1800s, small clues appeared.

When an electric current flowed through a wire, a compass needle nearby would move, as if a magnet were close.

So electricity could create magnetism.

And the opposite was true too.

Move a magnet near a coil of wire and a current would start to flow in it.

So magnetism could create electricity.

The two were connected somehow but nobody yet understood how deeply.