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1. 

   Number Six said, 11 months ago

   What’s the chances of Brewster having a brain wave?
2. 

   Jogger2 said, 11 months ago

   “If the spectrum were 2,500 miles wide….”

   To undestand that, I would want to know what is the minumum frequency, the maximum frequency, and how the frequencies are spaced.
3. 

   Varnes said, 11 months ago

   Much less a storm….alas, I believe all Brewster is capable of is an occluded front……..with occasional fog….
4. 

   Hykke said, 11 months ago

   Jogger2: Exactly right, since the frequency can go to infinity the visible spectrum being of finite size should have a releative size of zero inches.
5. 

   Alain Harper (מיכאל בן-אברם) said, 11 months ago

   @Hykke

   The measured frequencies don’t go to infinity in either direction, nor do the possible frequencies. Good question, though. You should be able to infer the answer from the information given here:
   
   http://htwins.net/scale2/?bordercolor=white
6. 

   Nabuquduriuzhur said, 11 months ago

   re: Hykke

   It’s not known how high frequencies can go, but the known frequency range (and thus energies) of gamma waves is larger than the range from radio to x-rays. It would be reasonable to break up gamma waves into groups like the other EM waves.
7. 

   SciTech Scotty said, 11 months ago

   OMG! Put your tinfoil hats on!
8. 

   Nabuquduriuzhur said, 11 months ago

   One of the weirder things that happens with gamma rays is called “pair instability” where positrons and electrons are formed from gamma rays “colliding.”
   .
   I used it in Jacob’s Trouble, the Gathering Storm (pgs 95&96):

   “Eta Carinae had burned through its fuel much more rapidly than smaller stars like the Sun. Hydrogen was fused into helium in one fiftieth of the time the Sun had required to use up its supply. Then helium was
   converted to lithium. Lithium fused into silicon, nitrogen, oxygen and carbon. Once the core was mostly oxygen, pair-instability— the creation of positron-electron pairs from gamma rays— began to reduce the radiation pressure, hydrostatic pressure and electrical charge that “held up” the outer layers of the star and prevented them from collapsing inward into the core. Like a shrinking balloon, the star’s gas began to move toward the core, with increasing velocity. The incoming gas, under the attraction of gravity and electrical charge, compacted into the still shrinking core.”
9. 

   Coyoty said, 11 months ago

   So, according to the chart, Brewster’s brain is just barely visible in both size and hue.
10. 

    Gary McSpook said, 11 months ago

    Having only a Bachelor of Arts degree, all I can say is, “Hey, clever drawings.”
    My hat is off to you magnificently nerdy Science types. You give my poor artsy/craftsy brain much to ponder.
11. 

    Astute Social Observer said, 10 months ago

    @Nabuquduriuzhur

    Is your name William? I’ve never heard of a born-again Christian becoming a scientist (and I doubt I ever will again).
12. 

    cincity48 said, 10 months ago

    @Gweedo Murray

    Lol. Very good Gweedo
13. 

    wbbh said, 10 months ago

    Illuminating!
14. 

    Clark Kent said, 10 months ago

    Did you know that with FM radio and TV the tower supports the antenna at the top but with AM radio the tower is the antenna?
15. 

    puddleglum1066 said, 10 months ago

    The “one inch out of 2500 miles” analogy comes from using a linear scale for frequency (that is, each inch represents a frequency range of so many terahertz, and each inch represents the same number of them). That’s not how we usually deal with frequency and wavelength, because their natural behavior is logarithmic/exponential (e.g., each tick on the chart represents a power of ten).
    .
    As for limits to the spectrum, yes, they exist. While in theory you could lower frequency arbitrarily close to zero, at some point you get to a wave whose length is too long to fit in the universe. At the other end, since energy is proportional to frequency, you reach an upper bound at a frequency that encompasses all the energy in the universe.
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