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Old October 10th 06, 09:32 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.antenna
Richard Clark Richard Clark is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jul 2006
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Default Where Does the Power Go?

On Mon, 09 Oct 2006 18:36:22 -0700, Jim Kelley
wrote:

By the way Richard, Wein's Law?


Hi Jim,

And yet he won the 1911 Nobel Prize for the law. He also discovered
what was to be called the Proton. How quickly fame fades....

We've long since learned that energy
is quantized. E=hv That's how much energy is in a single photon at
frequency v.


Yes, Wien's law was inappropriate for low frequency application
(meaning your daughter's computation is closer, by the factor I
offered, if not exact). His law was based on observational data for
very much shorter wavelengths. My studies generally confine
themselves well above 0°K, probably 2 or 3 degrees to a few hundred.
That is why I was initially satisfied with order of magnitude
accuracy.

(At least, that's what Einstein thought.) No fudging
needed!


Actually, Planck's explanation anticipated Einstein's photons by five
years. Further, he also corrected the massive errors of frequency vs.
power in what is called the Ultraviolet catastrophe. This was the
presumption that a Black body radiator emits energy with a
proportionality to frequency - a classical solution that yields
astronomic photonic power output at short wavelengths. I thought I
had dodged that bullet with my Wien's Displacement law spread sheet.
My focus is more oriented towards Phonon interactions.

To return to Gene's comment about the underlying presumption of Black
body radiation (perfectly correct), Planck's solution to the
Ultraviolet catastrophe was to describe Black body radiation as a
composite emission of many resonating cavities (which returns us to
single source Photons).

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC