Though you can’t see them, radio waves are all around you all the time, carrying information. For most people, some of those radio waves are Wi-Fi signals. Wi-Fi is the catchy name an industry alliance came up with to market devices that transmit large amounts of data over short distances using radio waves. The letters don’t stand for anything.
Wi-Fi, like broadcast radio and cellular telephone signals, is based on scientific discoveries dating back to the late 19th century. When electrons moving through a wire are made to alternate directions periodically, something magical happens. Electrons in another wire, located at a distance, start to move up and down in sync, as though they were telepathically connected.