Blackbody radiation
Concept · Physics, stage 1: Learn the vocabulary
Any object that absorbs all light falling on it also glows, and the colour of that glow depends only on its temperature, not on what it is made of. This is blackbody radiation, and it explains why a heated iron bar goes red then white. Classical physics predicted that such an object would emit infinite energy at short wavelengths, which is plainly false. Planck fixed the prediction in 1900 by assuming energy is emitted only in discrete packets, and that assumption started quantum theory.
Why it matters
It is the specific experimental failure that forced physics to abandon the assumption that energy varies continuously.
Part of
Blackbody radiation in the glossary
Sources
- Black-body radiation English Wikipedia
- Planck's law English Wikipedia
- Blackbody radiation Britannica
