All Questions
Tagged with optics thermal-radiation
6
questions
90
votes
7
answers
28k
views
Why do metals only glow red, yellow and white and not through the full range of the spectrum?
Why don't metals glow from red to yellow to green to blue etc.? Why only red, then yellow and then white? Shouldn't all wavelengths be emitted one by one as the temperature of the metal increases?
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- 1,637
21
votes
7
answers
5k
views
What can we deduce by the fact that mirrors cannot get a ray hotter than Sun's surface?
I think it is quite counter-intuitive that some lenses or mirrors focusing sunlight to a single spot cannot produce a temperature higher than Sun's Surface.
What could a scientist deduce from that ...
- 737
3
votes
0
answers
220
views
Kirchhoff's law for glass and transparent crystals; how exactly do hot transparent materials produce so much visible thermal radiation?
Together, the current answers to Is the visible light spectrum from "red-hot glass" at least close to Blackbody Radiation? explain that while we can not necessarily call a heated sample of ...
- 6,273
3
votes
1
answer
2k
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Can you use sun light to heat an objects surface to hotter than the surface of the Sun? [closed]
I was reading this question: Concentrating Sunlight to initiate fusion reaction and some of the comments, as well as an answer, suggest that thermodynamics second law prevents what I ask in the title. ...
- 2,613
2
votes
1
answer
321
views
Breit–Wheeler γ γ′ → e+ e− pair production with hohlaraum as photon target; is this particular experiment going to be carried out?
The IFLScience article Scientists Work Out How To Make Matter From Light describes photon-photon collisions producing pairs of particles, and the Nature Photonics Letter A photon–photon collider in a ...
- 6,273
2
votes
2
answers
274
views
How black body absorbs light?
I learn that black body absorbs light, but couldn't get the mechanism behind it. I wish I could get help.
- 107