Radio Waves & Electromagnetic Fields

Along with gravity, the weak interaction and the strong interaction, electromagnetism is one of the four fundamental forces of nature. An electromagnetic field is produced by an electrically charged object, which involves at least one moving electron. Since radio waves are electromagnetic radiation, they are also produced by moving electrons.

If you find my explanation crude and not satisfactory, that is because I am quite bad at physics. Anyway, why would you hope to find a proper physics lesson inside a review of an app? Go find a good teacher, preferably one that uses Radio Waves & Electromagnetic Fields as a tool.

Radio Waves & Electromagnetic Fields is a fun little Java simulation that aims to demonstrate how radio waves work, within a magnetic field. It’s very crudely animated, which is part of its charm, and even without an advanced GUI it has the potential to make a physics lesson more fun.

When you first enter the application, you are told to “wiggle the electron!” When doing so, it will start producing radio waves, which you can analyze by toggling between the various displays. For example, you can display the field as a curve with vectors, as a simple curve or as a full field. You can also choose to see the radiated field or the static field surrounding the electron.

As I’ve already mentioned, the program should be used by a teacher during the lessons about electromagnetism and radio waves. Unfortunately, the app itself doesn’t provide explanations, so you won’t learn much by wiggling the electron yourself, unless you have the basic understanding of the concept.

As a teaching tool, Radio Waves & Electromagnetic Tools can be pretty efficient. Even if it may seem less “spectacular” than other apps developed by PhET Interactive Simulations (from the University of Colorado), it can still be used to add a bit of color to a physics lesson.