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The ultraviolet catastrophe, also called the Rayleigh–Jeans catastrophe, was the prediction of late 19th century to early 20th century classical physics that an ideal black body at thermal equilibrium would emit an unbounded quantity of energy as wavelength decreased into the ultraviolet range.
May 22, 2019 · The ultraviolet catastrophe is the error at short wavelengths in the Rayleigh–Jeans law (depicted as “classical theory” in the graph) for the energy emitted by an ideal black-body.
Nov 24, 2022 · The ultraviolet (UV) catastrophe, also called the Rayleigh–Jeans catastrophe, is the prediction of classical electromagnetism that the intensity of the radiation emitted by an ideal black body at thermal equilibrium goes to infinity as wavelength decreases (see figure \(\PageIndex{1}\) )\(^1\).
Although the Rayleigh-Jeans law works for higher wavelengths \(\lambda\), it diverges as \(\lambda\) become low in value; this divergence for high frequencies is called the ultraviolet catastrophe.
Dec 13, 2023 · The ultraviolet catastrophe was a perplexing issue in physics during the late 1800s. Scientists, using classical physics, predicted that the intensity of radiation emitted by a black body would skyrocket to infinity as the frequency of the radiation increased, particularly in the ultraviolet range.
This divergence between the results of classical theory and experiments, which came to be called the ultraviolet catastrophe, shows how classical physics fails to explain the mechanism of blackbody radiation.
Worse yet, the form of \( u \) is unbounded as \( f \) grows large. When integrated over the entire spectrum, the Rayleigh-Jeans distribution would suggest that blackbodies radiate infinite energy, a problem that became known as the "ultraviolet catastrophe."
What was the Ultra-Violet Catastrophe? This dramatically-named event came from a disagreement with experimentally measured black-body spectra and the spectra predicted by classical physics. Through experiments with objects very close to being perfect black-bodies, their emission spectra looked much like the diagram above.
The Ultraviolet Catastrophe. A is an idealized object which absorbs and emits all frequencies. Classical physics can be used to derive an equation which describes the intensity of blackbody radiation as a function of frequency for a fixed temperature--the result is known as the Rayleigh-Jeans law.
The Rayleigh–Jeans law agrees with experimental results at large wavelengths (low frequencies) but strongly disagrees at short wavelengths (high frequencies). This inconsistency between observations and the predictions of classical physics is commonly known as the ultraviolet catastrophe.
