Electromagnetic Spectrum

I don't understand what is meant by 'continuous' in terms of the EM Spectrum. Does it mean that even if we can just see visible light, at the same time the other types of wave (e.g gamma) are also being emitted. I have heard the term also being used to describe visible light which has confused me also. I would be really grateful for some help.

Reply 1

Dat1Guy

Hey, when I first encountered this I too was confused at af and I spent ages looking around 😂

What it means is that if you look at any part of the spectrum and then essentially zoom in so the difference between frequencies gets smaller and smaller there will still be a photon being emitted at that frequency. So essentially every frequency is present..

So for visible light for example, there isn't just red light and orange light, there is a fade between them of an infinite number of frequencies between them.

But for an emission spectrum for example, it is a discrete spectrum, because there is only a certain frequency of light emitted when the photons de-excite down to a lower energy level (as the energy difference is quantised).