Electromagnetic waves transmit energy through the interaction of electricity and magnetism. Radio waves and light waves are the most familiar form of electromagnetic waves, but microwaves, infrared, heat, ultraviolet, X-rays, and gamma ray s are all part of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, scientists never linked the two phenomena before the nineteenth century.

The connection began with Hans Christian Oersted (1775-1851). In 1820, he discovered that an electric current in a conductor created a magnetic field. This was followed by Michael Faraday's discovery that magnetic lines of force induced the flow of an electric current in a conductor when they expanded, collapsed, or oscillated. But it was James Clerk Maxwell's work from 1864-1873 that mathematically unified electricity and magnetism with equations that quantified the phenomena, showing the codependency of electricity and magnetism.

Maxwell's research proved that the oscillation of an electric charge created an electromagnetic field that radiated...