The Quarky Dimension

EM waves play a huge role in our daily lives. We use them for various purposes, such as:

Radio waves (f = 10⁴Hz)
They are used to transmit television and radio programmes - television having a higher frequency than radio.

Microwave (f = 10¹⁰Hz)
We use microwave to cook food and transmit mobile phone signals. Energy from microwaves are absorbed by water molecules, which causes water to heat up and in turn cook the food. As microwaves contain more energy than radio waves, they can be used to transmit information to and from the satellites in orbit.

Infrared (f = 10¹²Hz)
Infrared from the Sun is absorbed by the skin and is felt as heat energy. We use IR in toasters and electric heaters.

Visible light (f = 10¹⁴Hz)
As the name implies, visible light is the only member of the EM spectrum that is visible to the naked eye. It can be split by a prism, which diffracts the different components of the white light based on their speed as they pass through a different medium (solid) from air.

Ultraviolet ray (f = 10¹⁶Hz)
UV ray is naturally found in sunlight. The skin turns darker when exposed due to the increased activity of melanocytes in the skin which produces more of the protective pigment, melanin in turn to the increased exposure towards UV ray. The darker skin (more melanin) absorbs more UV rays, thus causing less of them to reach the deeper aspects of the skin. UV rays have a carcinogenic effect towards the skin, thus having more of melanocytes protects the individual against skin cancer.

X-ray (f = 10¹⁸Hz)
Having a high amount of energy, x-ray can penetrate the living tissues of the human body, except the bone which allows for the use of X-ray in medical imaging to observe bone fractures and presence of fluid in the lungs. Upon penetration, X-rays are absorbed by the bone, thus leaving a clear imprint on an X-ray sheet in contrast to the different body tissues which either partially or do not absorb the rays at all, thus causing them to pass through the body and be detected on the X-ray sheet as black regions. However, low doses of X-rays may induce cancer in human, thus protective vests and lead tags are worn by the medical personnel when dealing with the X-ray machines.

Gamma ray (f = 10²⁰Hz)
Gamme ray, being the most energetic amongst its members of the EM spectrum, has the highest frequency of all. It mostly passes through the skin and body, but some may be absorbed by cells. It can neither be seen nor felt. It is a byproduct of molecules undergoing nuclear reaction. Having a very high amount of energy, it has the potential of disrupting the electrons from their configuration, thus causing disastrous effects on the human DNA when it collides upon them. Therefore, gamma rays are widely used as an anti-cancer therapy to cause the destruction of the cancer cell DNA, rendering them unable to undergo mitosis, thus leading to their death.