If you shine a flashlight through a tree blowing in the wind and vary the brightness to convey information, the signal can get distorted pretty easily.
However, if you have a constant brightness source and vary the color, it’s a lot easier to figure out what the source is trying to convey.
It's like saying that the violins is merely an analogy for how a double base works.
Rubber ducks aren't battleships because they both float. Visible light and radio attenutate in meaningfully-different ways. It's an analogy.
Lol news to me and my physics degree, Do tell because as far as I'm aware Maxwell's equations don't have an asterisk on them that say "doesn't work below 1 GHz".
Did you really just pull out Maxwell's equations?
EM interacts with matter in different ways. Glass hardly attenuates visible light, but wood does. 2.4 Ghz can pass through walls better than 5Ghz.
There's the concept of permittivity wherein Maxwell's equations are defined in free space with vacuum permittivity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_permittivity#Permittivi...
To accurately model EM waves, you need more than just Maxwell's equations. You require material equations to model interactions of EM with media.
If you want to get really advanced, whereas Maxwell's equations are classical physics, there's Quantum electrodynamics (QED) which can model interactions of EM and matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber#Mechanisms_of_at...
Same with communications over coax. Obviously visible light doesn't transmit well over copper, but a spectrum of radio waves do, some better than others.
If the ocean were as clear as your average long-distance fiber cable, you would see down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench (also in the range of visible light, AFAIK).
Clear in certain wavelengths. Depends on the composition of the glass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_fiber#/media/File:Si_Z...
Silica glass behaves differently from ZBLAN (fluorozirconate glass).
Which goes to show how complicated EM interactions with media can be. It's generally easier to just empirically measure attenuation through some medium and use the empirical measurements as a model.
> You require material equations to model interactions of EM with media
> Quantum electrodynamics (QED) which can model interactions of EM and matter.
It's amazing how condescending some people on here are; how could you possibly have missed literally in the first sentence of my response
> ... my physics degree
You don’t see how one being able to attenuate around a hill while another needs line of sight isn’t material to the way we use light and radio waves?
You literally started your comment with "Lol news to me", then you used your degree as if it made you more knowledgeable than anyone else here. Take a look in the mirror?
> ... Do tell
I did?
The extra information isn't to condescend. It's for other people that want to know more about the science.
IIRC, when Corning Co. first started working on optical fibers, the best available glass would be good for sending signals about ten meters. What was improved was not the total internal reflection; it was the purity of the glass.
