As the wavelength of an electromagnetic wave get shorter and its frequency increases and the amount of energy it transports becomes greater.
As the wavelength of an electromagnetic wave get shorter its frequency increases and as wavelength gets longer its frequency decreases.
The relationship between wavelength, frequency and energy means that:.
Frequency and energy are directionally proportional so the arrows in those two columns face in the same direction.
Wavelength is inversely proportional to frequency and energy, so the arrow in the wavelength column faces in the opposite direction to the other two.
The standard units in the three columns are metres, hertz and electronvolts, but metric prefixes are used to cope with the huge differences of scale from the top to the bottom of each column.
There are arrows in each column that show the longest wavelength in the wavelength column is at the top whilst the highest frequency and highest energies are at the bottom of their respective columns.
The corresponding value in the frequency column is 3GHz (gigahertz) and the energy column shows the energy carried by these waves as being between 1.24 µeV (microelectron volts) and 1.24 MeV (megaelectron volt).
For example, notice that in the wavelength column, the boundary between microwaves and radio waves is around 10 cm (centimetres).
Compare wavelength, frequency and energy by reading across the three columns.
It forms a very small band of wavelengths, frequencies and energies within the electromagnetic spectrum as a whole.
A magnified view of the visible spectrum is shown on the left of the diagram.
Radio waves which have the longest wavelengths and the lowest frequency appear at the top of the diagram whilst gamma rays which have the shortest wavelengths but the highest frequencies appear at the bottom.
The diagram shows that the electromagnetic spectrum can be described as bands of electromagnetic radiation.
This diagram of the electromagnetic spectrum shows how wavelength, frequency and energy are related to one another.