|
Wien's law or Wien's displacement law in physics
states that there is an inverse relationship between the wavelength of the peak
of the emission of a black body and its temperature.
-
where T is the temperature of the blackbody in kelvin (K) and λmax
is the peak wavelength in meters.
Basically, the hotter an object is, the shorter the wavelength at which it will emit radiation. For example, the surface
temperature of the sun is 5780 K, giving a peak at 500 nm. As can be seen in the article Color, this is fairly in the middle of the visual spectrum, due to the spread resulting in white light. Due to the scattering of blue light by the atmosphere this
white light is separated somewhat, resulting in a blue sky and a yellow sun.
A lightbulb has a glowing wire with a somewhat lower temperature, resulting in
yellow light, and something that is "red hot" is again a little less hot.
Today we derive the law from the Planck's Law of
Radiation.
See also: Wien, Wilhelm
|