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black body

File:Black_body_radiator_at_CARLO_laboratory_in_Poland.jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons

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black body

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Also known as blackbody, Planckian radiator

idealized physical body that absorbs all incident electromagnetic radiation

AI overview

A black body is an idealized object in physics that absorbs all the light and radiation that hits it, rather than reflecting any of it back. Scientists study black bodies because they help us understand how objects emit and absorb radiation, which is fundamental to understanding everything from how stars shine to how heat moves through the universe.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

~19 min read

Encyclopedic overview

A black body radiator used in CARLO laboratory in Poland. It is an approximation of a model described by Planck's law utilized as a spectral irradiance standard.

As the temperature of a black body decreases, its radiation intensity also decreases and its peak moves to longer wavelengths. Shown for comparison is the classical Rayleigh–Jeans law and its ultraviolet catastrophe.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “black body” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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