Talk:LADAR

Call me crazy, but aren't radio waves technically light as well? Thus it's hard to say that LIDAR uses light rather than radio waves... --Dante Alighieri 09:19 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Light and radio waves are both distinct forms of electromagnetic radiation. I don't think the definitions of light and radio waves overlap. The wavelength range of light is about 400 to 800 nm, while the range of radio waves is about 0.1 m to infinity. These ranges do not overlap. See Electromagnetic spectrum. -- Heron

Well, I'm not talking about visible light, but light as a generic term... used to refer to the entire electro-magnetic spectrum. If light refers only to visible light, then it seems rather redundant to call it visible light. ;) --Dante Alighieri 09:45 28 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Infra-red and ultra-violet are generally thought of as light too. Generally "light" is used to refer to anything between the far infra-red to the extreme ultra-violet. Terahertz radiation represents the grey area between "light" and radio at the low end, and EUV starts to blend into "soft" X-rays at the high end.

So it's:

• Radio
  • ELF, VLF
  • ...
  • UHF
  • Microwaves
• Terahertz rays (grey area)
• Light
  • Far IR
  • Near IR
  • Visible spectrum
    • "Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet"
  • Ultra-violet
• Extreme ultraviolet (grey area)
• X-rays
• Gamma rays
• etc...

-- Anon.