I’m curious to know if there’s something else that hasn’t been discovered yet.

(1) – I’m interested to know how infrared light was discovered. If human eyes can only see a certain wavelength, how did anyone eventually find out that there was something else there, and found a way to see it? And is there a possibility that there is a longer wavelength than we are currently aware of, that could show things that aren’t currently visible with 2015 technology?

(2) – Same thing with sound. The human ear can only hear a certain range of frequencies. How did anyone discover the lower and higher frequencies, and how did they know they were there?

(3) – Is there any possibility (clearly showing my gross lack of knowledge and understanding of simple physics) that sound and light wavelengths could meet at some point? Is there a point where they could cross over, and create a different type of something (besides sound or light) that we might currently be unaware of?

(4) – And the point of this thread/question. Using the examples of discovering sound and light, I’m thinking it might be possible that there is something else that hasn’t been discovered yet? Besides sound, or light, is there some other kind of wavelengths or similar thing that would allow for other dimensions or planes (/plains?), or is there the belief that everything of that sort that exists, has already been identified?

JTQ said:

(3) – Is there any possibility (clearly showing my gross lack of knowledge and understanding of simple physics)

Regardless of your inadequacies your questions will provide interesting information. Thanks for taking the time.

Postpocelipse said:

JTQ said:

(3) – Is there any possibility (clearly showing my gross lack of knowledge and understanding of simple physics)

Regardless of your inadequacies your questions will provide interesting information. Thanks for taking the time.

Cheers, appreciated :) My brain runs at about 25% of what it used to … lol…

look up william herschel for the discoverer of infrared light.

JTQ said:

I’m curious to know if there’s something else that hasn’t been discovered yet.

(1) – I’m interested to know how infrared light was discovered. If human eyes can only see a certain wavelength, how did anyone eventually find out that there was something else there, and found a way to see it?

Herschel did it using a prism to refract light, heating thermometers with the rays beyond the visible spectrum.

And is there a possibility that there is a longer wavelength than we are currently aware of, that could show things that aren’t currently visible with 2015 technology?

The IR has been studied right up to radio waves with wavelengths in the hundreds of km. Long radio waves have been used in imaging (of astronomical bodies). You can’t use them to image small objects, obviously.

(2) – Same thing with sound. The human ear can only hear a certain range of frequencies. How did anyone discover the lower and higher frequencies, and how did they know they were there?

There are various recording instruments, including low-tech gramophone records and seismographs, that can make graphical records of low frequency sound. Indeed sound waves were recorded and analysed long before there was any way to play them back. Infrasound and ultrasound were known about from the mid 1800s but not much considered at that time.

(3) – Is there any possibility (clearly showing my gross lack of knowledge and understanding of simple physics) that sound and light wavelengths could meet at some point? Is there a point where they could cross over, and create a different type of something (besides sound or light) that we might currently be unaware of?

No, they are completely different beasts. Sound waves are compressional waves in matter: light is an electromagnetic wave. (Indeed, light travels a bit better without a material medium). You can have 20 kHz electromagnetic waves and 20 kHz compressional waves, but they aren’t the same thing…

(4) – And the point of this thread/question. Using the examples of discovering sound and light, I’m thinking it might be possible that there is something else that hasn’t been discovered yet? Besides sound, or light, is there some other kind of wavelengths or similar thing that would allow for other dimensions or planes (/plains?), or is there the belief that everything of that sort that exists, has already been identified?

There are other kinds of waves and particles. Electrons of course have been used for imaging in electron microscopes. The scattering of other particles can be used in a kind of imaging.

In physics it’s pretty much exhausted.
In chemistry it’s ongoing, something new all the time.

So my question wasn’t entirely useless or stupid then.

Thanks for the info :)

In physics it’s pretty much exhausted.

if you are going to quote william thomson you should attribute.

(though the actual quote “There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement.” wasn’t said by him, or anyone really.)

:-)

JTQ said:

So my question wasn’t entirely useless or stupid then.

Thanks for the info :)

You’re welcome

> (3) – Is there any possibility (clearly showing my gross lack of knowledge and understanding of simple physics) that sound and light wavelengths could meet at some point? Is there a point where they could cross over, and create a different type of something (besides sound or light) that we might currently be unaware of?

ROFL with JTQ. Everyone will tell you that this is total rubbish, even I would have a year ago, but actually it isn’t.

As you go down in frequency in both light and sound from 100 Hz to 1 Hz to 0.01 Hz, to 0.0001 Hz and beyond, a strange thing happens. First of all the wave shape starts to go irregular. Then we start looking at both EM waves and sound waves generated by the oscillating movements of ions. By the time you get down to frequencies similar to those of the Sunspot cycles (1 cycle per 22 years) sound waves and electromagnetic waves are getting very close to identical. As they merge, they merge into what are known as plasma waves. Plasma waves also exist at higher frequencies as well (eg. in fusion reactors and particle accelerators) where they are distinct from both light waves and sound waves.

Also at very low frequencies, the movement of mass (sound waves) and electric and magnetic charges (EM waves) start to merge into waves that transport significant amounts of mass, such as planetary and stellar masses, and when that happens there is associated with them the generation of gravity waves. So we’re starting to get a merging of electromagnetics and gravity, even as the concept of “wave” disintegrates.

there’s an ol’ fashioned wave
from ‘cross the road a neighbour
side to side’t involves a hand
says hello happy to see you I am
same back’n a smile on face
affirmation non-hostility what’t for
there’s an ol’ fashioned wave

JTQ said:

I’m curious to know if there’s something else that hasn’t been discovered yet.the

(4) – And the point of this thread/question. Using the examples of discovering sound and light, I’m thinking it might be possible that there is something else that hasn’t been discovered yet? Besides sound, or light, is there some other kind of wavelengths or similar thing that would allow for other dimensions or planes (/plains?), or is there the belief that everything of that sort that exists, has already been identified?

Pushing observations beyond previous limits frequently yields things that haven’t been seen before. New states of matter recently discovered in this way or in other ways https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_matter
Include far more than I can easily list. Including liquid crystals, superconductors, high temperature superconductors, spin ice, fractional hall effect, quark-gluon plasma, dark matter, superfluid, Bose-Einstein condensate, colour-glass condensate, neutronium etc.

There are also heaps of quasiparticles that have been discovered. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_quasiparticles
And https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasiparticle#Examples_of_quasiparticles_and_collective_excitations

These are related to waves through wave-particle duality. So each could be considered “another kind of wavelength”.