Blackbody radiation – Planck curve, Wien's law and colour

PhysicsQuantum & Nuclear PhysicsAges 17–18

Drag the temperature slider or pick a preset object (Earth, an oven, an incandescent light bulb, the Sun, Sirius A) to see the Planck radiation curve change both its height and the position of its peak. Read the peak wavelength from Wien's displacement law, the total radiated intensity from the Stefan–Boltzmann law and the colour of the glowing body at that temperature; save several curves to compare them and measure wavelengths with a draggable ruler on the graph. Based on the "Blackbody Spectrum" simulation by PhET Interactive Simulations, University of Colorado Boulder (CC BY 4.0); rewritten.

Lesson: Quantum physics