Do you think WiFi is harmful? (From a Physics perspective)

[MageBot]

I'm sure lots of you are very big physics fans. I got a new WiFi modem the other day and it's like sitting literally 1 m away from my head and I can't put it anywhere else.

I've heard that it might have damaging effects on your health, but I wanted to know from a science perspective if that's viable or not.

The biggest against argument is that it is simply not powerful enough to penetrate our skin and that 10 minutes of sun light is already more radiation than like a lifetime of WiFi(Exaggerated but u get the point).

The for argument is that people seem to get more headaches when around WiFi and that it can kill sperm. The problem with this is that headaches could be just a placebo.

The sperm one is a little bit stupid though. They did the experiment with WiFi -----> Direct to semen without even taking into account our Pants, Underwear, Skin, Public Hair and Ball Sacks which the WiFi would most likely have to travel through in normal circumstances.

So physics people, what do you think ?

[giveup]

Think about the strength of radio waves that produce a television signal, they're probably the equivalent of 2mb/s. So a 700kb Wifi won't do anything. I know that's data, but I'm 100% sure it's not a problem

[taiga]

Did you make an account specifically to post this?


and nah it's not harmful at the level at which it's used.

[Mao]

In the simplest sense, cancer comes from molecular degredation, i.e. DNA molecules get damaged, thus mutated, thus bad.

The frequency of radio waves are too low to induce any molecular changes. At higher energies (UV from the sun), you can break molecules, which is how skin cancer occurs. At lower energy (infrared), you can make molecules vibrate, but it cannot break molecules apart. At even lower energies (microwave), you can only make molecules spin. Wifi frequencies are even lower energy.

I really wouldn't worry about it.

[dc302]

It is true that radio waves cannot directly cause DNA mutations, but there's still a lot of debate/research into whether it can indirectly cause damage. While I wouldn't worry, I don't think anyone can say for sure that it is 100% not harmful.

(note, I personally wouldn't worry about it at all)