Retro electro magnetic spectrum chart is rainbow science geek porn

This awesome old chart color codes and diagrams in one madly chromatic sunrise all the known frequencies (at the time) of the electromagnet spectrum,including everything from the range of the human eye to gamma rays to the transparency of quartz., I've been looking at this thing for an hour, and I still can't believe how much information is packed in here. This is science geek chart porn.

The Electromagnetic Spectrum [Copper Alliance via Crunchgear]

[#1 posted by monstrinho_do_biscoito , January 30, 2009 4:45 AM]

it's amazing how small the visible spectrum is.

[#2 posted by Anonymous , January 30, 2009 5:46 AM]

Of course we should scratch off the section for VHF TV now....

[#3 posted by chdunk , January 30, 2009 6:31 AM]

goodbye old wallpaper, hello new!

[#4 posted by AceJohnny , January 30, 2009 6:34 AM]

Ob-link: XKCD's take on the subject:
http://xkcd.com/273/

[#5 posted by chdunk , January 30, 2009 6:37 AM]

ok, wait, wtf is "deep therapy", and why does it overlap with hard gamma rays? what exactly was westinghouse getting up to when they made this?

[#6 posted by Sijay , January 30, 2009 6:54 AM]

Pretty! Is there a reason I'm missing that it's designed with the radial distortion, other than "Looks cool?" (which it does, mind you).

I suppose it allows extra room for the more data-dense spectra further from the center, but is there anything else implied by that sorting?

[#7 posted by semiotix , January 30, 2009 8:44 AM]

Now I feel like an idiot. "Attenuation by rain and fog," duh, no WONDER my Omnidirectional Death Wave Generator didn't meet its performance targets!

[#8 posted by semiotix , January 30, 2009 9:03 AM]

ok, wait, wtf is "deep therapy", and why does it overlap with hard gamma rays? what exactly was westinghouse getting up to when they made this?

It's what it sounds like--therapeutic radiation that penetrates deeply into the body, as opposed to the superficial kind that they'd use to fry tumors on or near the skin. What Westinghouse was up to was manufacturing and selling the machines that generated those rays.

To the extent that radiotherapy is less horrifying now than when this chart came out, it has to do with more precisely targeting the irradiation and therefore minimizing the collateral damage. But from what I understand (due to research on a cognate subject, so grain of salt) the frequencies used haven't changed much.

[#9 posted by strider_mt2k , January 30, 2009 9:18 AM]

That's also an eerily effective graphical representation of what Skittles taste like.

[#10 posted by sorahn , January 30, 2009 10:09 AM]

So... Where can I buy it?

[#11 posted by notatoad , January 30, 2009 10:14 AM]

XKCDs take on the subject

there's an interesting thread over at reddit. apparently this is a photograph of a poster that hung over XKCDs bed as a child. it got him interested in science, and directly inspired the comic you linked to.

and no, you can't buy it anywhere.

[#12 posted by gwax , January 30, 2009 10:19 AM]

Nobody seems to have asked the important question yet: where can I get a huge, printed copy of this to put on my wall?

[#13 posted by js7a , January 30, 2009 1:00 PM]

$15.95 + shipping from the Exploratorium

[#14 posted by nixiebunny , January 30, 2009 5:23 PM]

It's interesting to see that the portion of the spectrum that I build instruments for is not inhabited at all in this poster. That would be the "rain and fog" portion from 3mm to 0.3mm.

It turns out that it's possible (though tricky) to detect particular molecules in the far reaches of the galaxy in this frequency band in spite of the interstellar dust that obscures optical viewing, so these frequencies are used by radio astronomers to discern what's out there. (Or something like that; I'm an engineer, not an astronomer.)

If you're interested...
http://aro.as.arizona.edu/

[#15 posted by Chris Tucker , January 30, 2009 10:37 PM]

This is the kind of image one would expect to see on a screen in the background of an Original Series Star Trek episode.

And that I can buy my own copy from The Exploratorium makes me a very happy mutant!