It _is_ the wrong feel for a concept. The analogy breaks down because the color changes are way too wide in frequency (and thus too robust to noise) compared to what happens in a radio broadcast. If you changed the color from RGB(127, 0, 0) to RGB(126.999999, 0.000001, 0), the movement of that tree would actually start to make your strategy difficult.
Going from red to orange is about 50 THz. Typical FM radio modulation width is 100 kHz.
The analogy isn't wrong, it's just that it is incomplete as given. You are bringing the sensitivity of the receiver into the equation. But it doesn't really break down the analogy, because the frequency shift in color is calibrated for the human eye's sensitivity. Calibrate it for a FM receiver and that tiny color shift becomes easily discernible. The tree leaves have no impact on frequency, just amplitude.
The reason the analogy is good is because it isn't even really an analogy, it is in fact a description of electromagnetic waves and a noise source.
> The tree leaves have no impact on frequency, just amplitude.
That's an oxymoron, really. Frequency and amplitude are closely interrelated concepts (e.g. see Heisenberg's uncertainty principle in the context of signal processing). Frequency-varying and amplitude-varying even more so!
The flashlight is the radio tower, the tree is the tree, and the radio in the car is your eyes. There is no analogy here, it is literally the same EM waves shifted up to where our eyes can see them.
It's like saying that the violins is merely an analogy for how a double base works.
> Visible light and radio attenutate in meaningfully different ways. It's an analogy.
Lol news to me and my physics degree, Do tell because as far as I'm aware Maxwell's equations don't have an asterisk on them that say "doesn't work below 1 GHz".
To accurately model EM waves, you need more than just Maxwell's equations. You require material equations to model interactions of EM with media.
If you want to get really advanced, whereas Maxwell's equations are classical physics, there's Quantum electrodynamics (QED) which can model interactions of EM and matter.
a lot of people here have a lot of passions, but sometimes the passions overlap and we rub shoulders. if someone had made a pokemon playing card metaphor we might be in the same general condition - but i think we're better behaved showing each other how smart we must be with radio waves instead of greymon
Both are examples of communication by means of frequency modulated and amplitude modulated electromagnetic waves with distortion from a moving three. Also a good example that a large change in quantity is a change in kind. Probably a legit analogy imho.
It’s a terrific analogy. OP is arguing that it isn’t an analogy but an identity. For what should be obvious reasons, it isn’t. And in this case, the difference between analogy and our best model of reality is material.
It's not saying the violin IS "merely an analogy for how a double base works", just that a violin can be used as a simple analogy to somebody who understands how a violin works but doesn't know what a double bass is.
Comparing similar things is literally what an analogy is, the fact that in these two cases (radio/light and string instruments) the things being compared are very similar it doesn't make them the same thing, nor does it make it not an analogy.
It is not literally the same. The colors you perceive on the screen in front of you demonstrate why. That banner above is not orange; it’s red and green. You don’t actually have the ability to distinguish a varying frequency between red-orange and yellow-orange, and two amplitude modulated “carriers” at red and green.
That’s the hallmark of an analogy. It gives the general idea, but breaks down if we interrogate it in too much detail.
Essentially that is actually the case. Human-visible light and AM/FM radio waves are just different wavelengths along the EM spectrum.
A flashlight beams out waves that we can see; a radio transmitter beams out waves we can't. The brightness of the beam of light is related to its amplitude, just like the signal content in AM radio is related to its amplitude. And the color of the beam of light is related to its frequency, just like the signal content in FM radio is related to its frequency.
The explanation asks us to imagine shining a flashlight through a tree, first changing the flashlight brightness and then changing its color.
The flashlight is an analogy for a radio transmitter. We all get that they work on same principle but just on different wavelengths. But regardless I can't shine the flashlight in my kitchen drawer at my radio and pick up a signal.
Well... It kind of does. The source of the radio station is a kind of flashlight, just on a different frequency. The tree is still a tree (and all the other objects)
Going from red to orange is about 50 THz. Typical FM radio modulation width is 100 kHz.