What would WIFI look like if you could see it?
As it turns out, it would be incredibly psychedelic. And way too bright.
It's a question that's been tackled before by various researchers, but the results have never been this colourful, dramatic or Desktop Background-worthy.
Wi-Fi is an energy field that is transmitted as waves. The waves have a certain height, distance between them and travel at a certain speed. The distance between Wi-Fi waves is shorter than that of radio waves and longer than that of microwaves, giving Wi-Fi a unique transmission band that can't be interrupted by other signals.
This image shows an idealised Wi-Fi data transmitted over a band that is divided into different sub-channels, which are shown in red, yellow, green and other colours.
The new illustrations were produced with the help of M. Browning Vogel, a former researcher at NASA Ames lab. Follow the pics for more details about what they represent and how they were made.