802.11ac and 802.11n Wi-Fi stream out of our Apple AirPort routers at 2.4 and 5GHz and stream into our iPhones and iPads and iPods and Macs, but what would all those signals, the ones saturating us all the time these days, look like if we could see them? Well, Nickolay Lamm, with the help of Dr. M. Browning Vogel, took a shot at showing us on MyDeals:
Wifi is an energy field that is transmitted as waves. The waves have a certain height, distance between them and travel at a certain speed. The distance between wifi waves is shorter than that of radio waves and longer than that of microwaves, giving wifi a unique transmission band that can't be interrupted by other signals. This image shows an idealized wifi data transmitted over a band that is divided into different sub-channels, which are shown in red, yellow, green and other colors.
I use Wi-Fi all the time and never really think about it. Like the Force, only informational rather than all super-powery, it just exists everywhere, between my AirPort Extreme and my Mac, between my iPhone and iPad. Since my water isn't boiling in the cup right now, and humans and animals alike still seem to be reproducing, and with no additional eyes compared to previous generations, all that Wi-Fi we're soaking in doesn't seem to have a downside. Yet seeing it visualized, live and in color, does seem to give it much greater substance.
Check out Lamm's article for the rest of pictures, and the story behind them.
Reader comments
Visualizing Wi-Fi: What all those signals would look like if you could see them
"The distance between wifi waves is shorter than that of radio waves and longer than that of microwaves"
this is only partially true, while they are shorter than radio waves they are microwaves. that section of the spectrum is designated as follows. 3 to 30 mhz is high frequency 30 to 300 megahertz is very high frequency and 300 to 3,000 megahertz is ultra high frequency and is also the start of the microwave band.
True, that and the fact that microwave ovens run at the exact same 2.4Ghz as wifi.
Very nice, although I think that if we could through some weird synesthesia translate the wifi band into color we would not actually see it in daylight since the sun also broadcast in that frequency, as in all others. It would have the effect of turning on a red lamp in broad daylight, it would wash out to white. Plus, we would only see it when it reflected onto something. But the idea is nice anyway.
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