Chapter 6: Problem 13
Planck's radiation law tells us that the intensity of radiation per unit area and per unit wavelength \(\lambda\) from a black body at temperature \(T\) is $$ I(\lambda)=\frac{2 \pi h c^{2} \lambda^{-5}}{\mathrm{e}^{h c / \lambda k_{g} T}-1} $$ where \(h\) is Planck's constant, \(c\) is the speed of light, and \(k_{B}\) is Boltzmann's constant. a) Show by differentiating that the wavelength \(\lambda\) at which the emitted radiation is strongest is the solution of the equation $$ 5 \mathrm{e}^{-h c / \lambda k_{B} T}+\frac{h c}{\lambda k_{B} T}-5=0 . $$ Make the substitution \(x=h c / \lambda k_{B} T\) and hence show that the wavelength of maximum radiation obeys the Wien displacement law: $$ \lambda=\frac{b}{T} $$ where the so-called Wien displacement constant is \(b=h c / k_{B} x\), and \(x\) is the solution to the nonlinear equation $$ 5 e^{-x}+x-5=0 $$ b) Write a program to solve this equation to an accuracy of \(\epsilon=10^{-6}\) using the binary search method, and hence find a value for the displacement constant. c) The displacement law is the basis for the method of optical pyrometry, a method for measuring the temperatures of objects by observing the color of the thermal radiation they emit. The method is commonly used to estimate the surface temperatures of astronomical bodies, such as the Sun. The wavelength peak in the Sun's emitted radiation falls at \(\lambda=502 \mathrm{~nm}\). From the equations above and your value of the displacement constant, estimate the surface temperature of the Sun.
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