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Do radio waves travel at the speed of light?

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Radio waves are a kind of electromagnetic radiation, and thus they move at the speed of light. The speed of light is a little less than 300,000 km per second. At that speed, a beam of light could go around the Earth at the equator more then 7 times in a second. read more

Yes, they do travel at the speed of light. Providing we are talking about the speed in a vacuum. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves, just as the light is. You may think of them as of the kind of light too, albeit with some different properties comparing to the visible light range. read more

Radio waves are a form of electromagnetic radiation – the same phenomenon as light, X-rays and various other types of radiation, but with much longer wavelengths. As such, they travel at the speed of light (ie 300,000 kilometres/186,000 miles per second) – a lot faster than the 340 metres (1,125 feet) per second that sound itself moves through the air. read more

Let's see, the speed of light is just about 300,000 km/sec, so it should take 1/300,000 = 3.33 microseconds to travel 1 km. This is short but still an easily measurable time period. I've never heard of radio waves taking seconds or milliseconds to travel a kilometer or two. read more

The takeaway here is that Radio waves, like light, are forms of energy with a given frequency and wavelength and it is the product of the energy's characteristic frequency and wavelength which is a constant, that constant being the speed of light. read more

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