What is Black-Body Radiation?
In physics, a black body is an object that absorbs all electromagnetic radiation, being purely non-reflective and opaque. Accordingly, its color is dictated only by its temperature. Different temperatures bounce atoms around at different intensities which correspond to respective wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation being produced. Black bodies and issues surrounding their radiation are especially famous for their role in the formulation of quantum mechanics in the early 20th century. Black-body radiation is sometimes also called cavity radiation, because in a laboratory, the closest approximation to a black body is a small hole connected to a larger cavity. Because any incoming light has to bounce around the interior of the cavity multiple times for it to be reflected back out, during which it is almost certain to be absorbed, the cavity hole nicely approximates the criteria of non-reflectiveness for black bodies. According to Gustav Kirchhoff, the physicist who introduced the ter
