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Blackbody Radiation - UV Catastrophe
image
Created for the OAE
Caption: The curves of emitted radiation from blackbodies of different temperatures. The x-axis shows wavelength and the y-axis shows the amount of energy emitted every second by a square meter of the surface of that blackbody at each wavelength.
The hotter the body, the shorter the wavelength and the bluer the light it emits its maximum amount of energy at. Despite the coolest body in this plot peaking in red light, the other hotter bodies all emit more red light than the coolest body.
The dotted line shows the emitted radiation predicted by classical theory prior to modern quantum mechanics. This prediction tends to infinity at shorter wavelengths for any blackbody temperature above zero and was dubbed the ‘ultraviolet catastrophe’.
Credit: IAU OAE/Niall Deacon
Glossary Terms:
Blackbody Radiation , Electromagnetic Radiation , Wavelength
Categories:
Physics
License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) icons
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