What is a black body and why do black body radiations prove that classical physics is wrong?
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An ideal black body absorbs all radiation that comes into contact with it, there is no transmission or reflection. This also means that any radiation it does emit is exclusively due to internal thermodynamics of the body. Classical physics predicts that this type of radiation source has an intensity which approaches infinity as the wavelength decreases. This topic is referred to as the Ultraviolet Catastrophe, named so because it is around wavelengths below the ultraviolet where the predictions run away from reality. Quantum physics was necessary to predict an intensity vs. frequency profile that matched observations, and didn’t break physics.
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