Black-Body Radiation

The problem of theoretically explaining the thermal emission spectrum of a so-called black body had a long and difficult gestation but, in the end, led to astonishing results that revolutionized our understanding of the world. In this chapter, we will start from the analysis of the characteristics of a black body, with the description provided by G. Kirchhoff[aut]Kirchhoff, Gustav Robert Georg in the second half of the nineteenth century; then, we will deal with the Stefan-Boltzmann law and, finally, we will discuss the formula obtained by W. Wien[aut]Wien, Wilhelm, with its limitations.