This visualiser was generated by Claude (Anthropic) as part of the Wireless 101 course materials. Every wavelength, period, photon energy, band edge and delay on this page is computed live from the formulas printed at the foot of the page — there is no lookup table. Three kinds of number appear, each labelled where it is used: computed (the four relations and the delay), published figure (the SI-exact constants c, h and the electronvolt, and the ITU and optical band edges), and illustrative (the short “used for” example beside each band). It does not measure anything and it does not call out to a server.
Constants: BIPM SI Brochure, 9th ed. (2019) — c exact since 1983, h and the electronvolt exact since the 2019 revision. Band edges: ITU-R radio-frequency band designations (VLF–EHF) and the standard optical region boundaries. Course sources: M1-L1 the electromagnetic spectrum and the transverse wave, M1-L2 c = fλ.
One knob — the frequency — sets everything else. Watch the wavelength λ = c/f, the period T = 1/f, the photon energy E = h f and the band recompute, and see the transverse wave pack more cycles into the same window as the frequency climbs. Higher frequency means shorter wavelength — the two are inverse, and the numbers say so.
The frequency is the only independent quantity. Each block downstream is computed from it, and its thumbnail is drawn from the same computation as the panels below — nothing here is an icon.
The electric field E and the magnetic field B are drawn orthogonal and in phase — they peak together and cross zero together, which is what “in phase” means for a plane wave in free space. The horizontal axis is a physical length, auto-ranged like a scope: as the frequency rises the wavelength shrinks and more cycles fit into the same window. The axis label states the length per division; the exact λ is in the readout above.
A logarithmic frequency axis from the very-low-frequency radio bands up through light. The coloured regions are the ITU radio bands and the optical regions; the marker is your frequency, and the label names the band and one illustrative use of it.