7 Fascinating Facts About The Invisible Forces Around Us: You Won't Believe Are True

Proteck'd EMF ApparelHealth & EMF Specialists

Published June 21, 2026·10 min read

The electromagnetic fields around you aren't just a curiosity. They're measurable, they carry energy, and understanding the physics behind them is the first step toward making informed choices about your daily exposure.

Does Time Really Move Differently Depending on Where You Stand?

Yes. And not in some abstract, impossible-to-measure way. Your feet age slower than your head. This is gravitational time dilation, predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity in 1915. It's been confirmed over and over with atomic clocks. In 2010, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) showed that a clock raised just 33 centimeters higher than another ticked at a measurably faster rate ^[1].

Let that sink in for a second. Just standing up means different parts of your body experience time at slightly different speeds. The difference is absurdly tiny at human scales, fractions of a nanosecond over a lifetime, but it's real. It's measurable. And it's happening to you right now.

Where this gets practical is GPS. Those satellites orbiting Earth at roughly 20,200 kilometers experience weaker gravity than we do on the surface. Their clocks tick faster by about 38 microseconds per day. If engineers didn't correct for this relativistic effect, your GPS navigation would drift by approximately 10 kilometers every single day. Einstein's "thought experiment" is literally what keeps your Uber on track.

The fact that time isn't constant, that it bends and stretches depending on gravity and speed, is one of those discoveries that genuinely rewires how you see reality. And honestly? It's not even the strangest thing happening around you right now.

Can Particles Really Pass Through Solid Walls?

They can. They do. It's called quantum tunneling, and it's not some fringe hypothesis. It's happening inside the sun right now, making life on Earth possible. Without quantum tunneling, hydrogen nuclei in the sun's core wouldn't have enough energy to fuse together. The temperature would need to be about 1,000 times hotter for classical physics to explain solar fusion. But tunneling lets those particles slip past the energy barrier, and the sun keeps burning ^[2].

On a smaller scale, quantum tunneling is what makes your flash drive work. The floating-gate transistors in solid-state memory rely on electrons tunneling through thin oxide barriers. Every time you save a file, quantum mechanics is doing the heavy lifting. This technology was built on principles first described by physicists Friedrich Hund and George Gamow in the late 1920s.

Here's where this connects to the bigger picture. If subatomic particles can pass through barriers we consider solid, what does that say about the nature of matter itself? The boundaries we see and touch, walls, skin, the case of your phone, aren't as impenetrable as they seem at the quantum level. If you've ever wondered whether the invisible forces around us are truly contained, the answer from quantum mechanics is a pretty firm "not really." For more on how energy moves in ways you might not expect, check out 10 Mind-Blowing Facts About The Invisible Forces Around Us: You Won't Believe Are True.

Is the 'Empty' Space Around You Actually Full of Energy?

The space between you and your screen looks empty. It isn't. According to quantum field theory, even a perfect vacuum buzzes with energy. These are called quantum vacuum fluctuations, and they create short-lived pairs of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence constantly. Sounds like pure theory, right? But in 1997, physicist Steve Lamoreaux at Los Alamos National Laboratory measured the Casimir effect, proving that these fluctuations exert a real, measurable force between two metal plates placed extremely close together.

So what does this mean in everyday terms? The air around you isn't just nitrogen and oxygen molecules. It's a buzzing field of electromagnetic energy. Visible light. Infrared heat radiating off your body. Radio waves from cell towers. Wi-Fi signals at 2.4 and 5 GHz. Bluetooth. Microwave radiation. The "empty" space in your living room is carrying dozens of overlapping electromagnetic fields at the same time.

This is where "is physics facts mind blowing dangerous" becomes a genuinely important question, not just a fun thought experiment. All of that electromagnetic radiation passing through your space, and through you, is a real physical phenomenon with measurable energy. According to the World Health Organization, the growing number of EMF sources has raised legitimate questions about potential health effects, prompting ongoing research worldwide ^[3]. We covered more of the science behind EM radiation in our post on 12 Mind-Blowing Facts About Electromagnetic Radiation: That Will Change How You See the World.

Next time someone tells you there's "nothing there," remember: physics disagrees pretty strongly.

How Does Electromagnetic Radiation Affect Your Body Every Day?

Let's talk about the invisible force you interact with most: electromagnetic radiation. Your phone emits it. Your laptop emits it. Your Wi-Fi router, smart TV, microwave, baby monitor, Bluetooth earbuds, and even your car's keyless entry system, all of them. The average modern home contains well over 10 wireless-emitting devices, and that number keeps climbing.

In 2011, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the WHO, classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as Group 2B, meaning "possibly carcinogenic to humans." This classification was based in part on an increased risk for glioma, a type of brain cancer, associated with heavy wireless phone use ^[3]. That's not "definitely causes cancer." But it's also not "definitely safe." It's a yellow flag from one of the most respected health organizations on the planet.

The U.S. National Toxicology Program completed a major study in 2018 that found "clear evidence" of heart tumors in male rats exposed to high levels of radio frequency radiation similar to 2G and 3G cell phone emissions [4]. The exposure levels were higher than typical human use, but the findings prompted additional scrutiny and debate among researchers at the FDA and other agencies.

This is why the question of whether astonishing physics facts can be dangerous has a surprisingly personal answer. The electromagnetic fields around you aren't just a curiosity. They're something worth understanding, and for many people, worth taking simple steps to reduce. If you want to Learn About EMF Protection, it's easier than you might think.

Can Light Really Be Two Things at Once?

Wave-particle duality is one of the most famously bizarre results in all of physics. Light behaves as a wave when it travels, producing interference patterns. But when you try to detect it, it shows up as individual particles called photons. The double-slit experiment, first performed by Thomas Young in 1801 and refined countless times since, shows this with eerie clarity.

Here's what makes it so unsettling. The act of observing changes the outcome. When physicists at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel set up detectors at the slits in 1998, the interference pattern disappeared. The photons "chose" to behave as particles once they were being watched. Remove the detectors, and the wave pattern comes back. This isn't a metaphor. It's a repeatable, laboratory-confirmed result.

Why should you care? Because the electromagnetic radiation around you, the same stuff coming from your devices, is this exact type of energy. It's simultaneously wave and particle. It passes through your walls and your body as a wave. When it interacts with your tissue, it deposits energy as discrete packets. This dual nature is exactly what makes questions about everyday EMF exposure so nuanced. The radiation is doing different things depending on how it interacts with matter.

If the surprising nature of invisible energy interests you, you'll find even more in our article 7 Mind-Blowing Facts About Electromagnetic Radiation: That Will Change How You See the World. It's a rabbit hole worth going down.

What Are the Invisible Forces We Can't See but Can Shield Against?

So we've established that the forces around us are real, measurable, and in some cases, potentially concerning. The natural follow-up: can you actually do anything about them? With gravity and time dilation, no. You're stuck with those. But with electromagnetic fields? Absolutely.

Faraday cages, named after Michael Faraday who invented them in 1836, work by distributing electromagnetic charge around the exterior of a conductive enclosure, canceling the field's effect inside. This is the same principle used to protect sensitive electronics in military and medical settings. And the technology scales down beautifully into wearable fabrics.

Silver-fiber textiles are one of the most effective shielding materials out there. Silver is the most electrically conductive element on the periodic table, and when woven into fabric, it creates a flexible Faraday cage that can block over 99% of RF radiation across a broad frequency range. Proteck'd EMF Protection builds this technology into clothing you'd actually want to wear. Their Faraday Collection uses silver-fiber fabric to offer measurable RF shielding without looking like you're wearing a tinfoil hat.

Is physics facts mind blowing dangerous enough to warrant changing your wardrobe? That depends on your comfort level. But considering the IARC classification and ongoing research, having a practical, science-backed option feels like common sense rather than paranoia. For a deeper look at the tech behind these innovations, check out 12 Fascinating Tech Facts That Sound Too Weird to Be True: The Complete List.

Why Should Everyday People Care About Invisible Physics Phenomena?

There's a tendency to treat mind-blowing physics facts as party tricks. Fun to share, easy to forget. But the invisible forces we've discussed here aren't abstract. They're shaping your biology, your technology, and your environment right now, in real time.

Think about it. You're sitting in a gravitational field that warps spacetime. Virtual particles are flickering in and out of existence in the air around you. Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields from at least a handful of nearby devices are passing through your body as you read this sentence. Subatomic particles in your electronics are quantum tunneling through barriers billions of times per second. None of this is hypothetical.

The astonishing physics behind these phenomena isn't just mind blowing for the fun of it. Understanding how EM radiation works helps you make informed choices about your daily exposure. Understanding Faraday shielding helps you evaluate whether products like silver-fiber clothing offer genuine protection (spoiler: the physics says they do). Understanding that "empty space" is full of energy helps you appreciate why invisible doesn't mean irrelevant.

Physics itself isn't dangerous. But not knowing the physics, especially the physics of the energy forces you're exposed to every day, can leave you making uninformed decisions. The good news? You're now seven facts smarter than you were ten minutes ago. And knowing really is half the battle.

About the Author

Proteck'd EMF Apparel

Health & EMF Specialists

The Proteck'd team covers EMF protection, silver-fiber apparel, and practical ways to reduce everyday radiation exposure. Every piece Proteck'd ships is designed, tested, and worn by the people who build it.