Submitted by chriswhoppers t3_100sm7x in askscience
cdstephens t1_j2jqw3f wrote
I think you misunderstand what radiation is. Your question doesn’t make much sense. Electromagnetic waves aren’t matter, they don’t work like matter and can’t be “ruptured” or “destroyed”. They don’t have pieces holding them together like matter does. There’s simply nothing to break apart.
Electromagnetic waves (like radio waves, visible light, etc.) are self-propagating waves of oscillating electric and magnetic fields that travel through space. They can also travel through materials, like water or glass.
Electromagnetic waves can be absorbed by matter, where the energy of the electromagnetic wave goes into the matter that’s absorbing it. For instance, radiation from the Sun is absorbed by your skin, thus making you warm (as well as damaging some cells).
Electromagnetic waves follow the superposition principle, where if two or more electromagnetic waves are in the same region of space they can interfere. If the intensity of the radiation is increased, this is constructive interference. If the radiation intensity is decreased, this is destructive interference.
Importantly, two waves from different sources cannot perfectly destructively interfere everywhere in all space. If you have two waves and there’s a region where they perfectly cancel out, there must be another region nearby where they add up and constructively interfere. So you cannot destroy or cancel out radiation with another electromagnetic wave, all you can do is shift in space where the intensity is high or low.
You can of course stop creating an electromagnetic wave by turning off whatever the source is (e.g. turning off a flashlight), but the radiation that’s been created will already be traveling outwards.
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