Wien's displacement law
What Wien's displacement law means in Physics A-Level, as defined for AQA, OCR.
Definitions of Wien's displacement law
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Reference: OCR
λmaxT = 2.9 × 10⁻³ m K, where λmax is the wavelength of peak emission, linking a star’s peak-emission wavelength to its surface temperature.
States that the wavelength of peak emission is inversely proportional to the surface temperature, with λmax T = 2.9 × 10⁻³ m K.
States λmaxT = 2.9 × 10⁻³ m K, where λmax is the peak wavelength in metres and T is thermodynamic temperature in kelvin.
Gives the peak wavelength as λmax = 2.9 × 10⁻³ / T, with T in kelvin and λmax in metres.
Topics that use Wien's displacement law
- Classification by temperature, black-body radiation (A-level only) (AQA A-Level)
- Electromagnetic radiation from stars (OCR A-Level)
Related terms
- Peak wavelength
- Stefan constant
- Stefan's law
- Black body
- Black-body modelling of stars
- Continuous spectrum
- Discrete energy levels
- Emission line spectrum
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