An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
English-French-Persian

A classical law approximately describing the intensity of radiation emitted by a → blackbody. It states that this intensity is proportional to the temperature divided by the fourth power of the wavelength (8πkT/λ⁴). The Rayleigh-Jeans law is a good approximation to the experimentally verified Planck radiation formula only at long wavelengths. At short wavelengths it runs into a paradox named the → ultraviolet catastrophe.

→ Rayleigh; → Jeans; → law.