this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2025
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[–] Dimand@aussie.zone 41 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Depends if you care about names or about physics. Radio, Infrared Gamma etc are just names we give to various parts of the continuous electromagnetic spectrum. The edges of these definitions are not super well defined. Changing from RF to microwave could be defined at say about 3 GHz, but there is not some clear physical difference between a 2.9 GHz photon and a 3.1 GHz photon other than the frequency change.

The lower limit to the frequency is I guess the inverse of the theoretical age of the universe/2. Something can't currently be oscillating slower than that.

There are some theories on plank length, quantisation limits, etc that might set some theoretical upper limit of photon frequency. But we don't appear to be anywhere close to observing such things. We have seen some rather crazy short wavelength particles that we haven't fully understood.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle

[–] jafffacakelemmy@fedia.io 5 points 1 day ago

Upvoted just because scientists have some wonderfully whimsical names for their discoveries.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io 3 points 1 day ago

There's no currently known upper or lower limit to photon frequencies (though some are theorized), and other than that gamma, radio or even visible light are just names we gave to different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum because they interact in certain ways with other stuff. These frequencies aren't unique from each other on their own in the fundamental sense you're thinking; the unique properties all come from the material doing the interaction.

So to answer your question, no unless we decide otherwise. Radio waves are defined as all electromagnetic waves of frequency X (I don't know the exact number) and lower, and likewise all electromagnetic waves of frequency Y or higher are defined to be gamma waves.