system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is there an actual difference between, say, microwaves and infrared waves, or did we just decide on random numbers to separate them?
gpt
Photon frequency doesn't have any well defined natural boundaries. Practically, the categories we separate EM radiation into has to do with how that particular radiation is created, manipulated and detected, i.e. how it interacts with matter. It makes sense to separate radio waves from microwaves from visible light because the methods for generating them and ways of using them are completely different. However, there is certainly a degree of arbitrariness in exactly where those boundaries are.