My initial thought is “no,” since our eyes, being receivers for specific wavelengths of EM radiation, can’t see frequencies like infrared, no matter how bright. Likewise, my cell phone’s WiFi and cell modules don’t conflict with each other (as far as this layperson can tell, anyway).

But if, for example, infrared were sufficiently bright/energetic, could it affect neighboring frequencies, like reds?

  • @[email protected]
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    51 year ago

    No, because frequency is a fundamental quality of a wave. Things that are affected by one frequency could also be affected by another in certain cases (such as when two frequencies are integer multiples), but the waves themselves will never affect each other.

    As an analogy, imagine playing a specific note on a flute. It doesn’t matter how many other notes you play, that original note will always be there alongside the others.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      11 year ago

      Thanks for the analogy! It’s pretty easy to understand how that works. I think I was imagining that EM waves shared some qualities with mechanical waves like sound, but I suppose that’s not the case!