Electromagnetic (EM) radiation is our main source of information about the world (i.e. “seeing is believing”). Most scientific techniques rely on some form of imaging/visualization (“microscopy”) and/or measurement of energy absorption or emission (“spectroscopy”) or both (for instance: fluorescence microscopy). In the figure above we outline the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation from x-rays to microwaves and the different scientific techniques that each type of radiation supports.
This work by Eugene Douglass and Chad Miller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.