<p>So…can someone help me understand the classical and modern way of thinking about the blackbody radiation? I’m having a hard time understanding the concept.</p>
<p>Also, particle in a box concept, Schrodinger’s concept please… it’s so hard to understand.</p>
<p>Given the limitations of College Confidential in regard to using symbols used in Math and Physics, a quantitative response is nearly impossible so I will try to gave a descriptive one.</p>
<p>A black body is an ideal object that does not reflect any radiat energy that falls on it, it is only capable of absorbing radiation. It emmits radiation as a function of its temperature. By the 19th century the wave theory of light had been widely accepted after the experiments of Young and physicists such as Stefan, Botzman and Wien attempted to find a means to relate the Radiants Intensity (R) to the spectral function of light waves as functions of the temperature of the black body and the wavelength of the light they emitted.</p>
<p>Stefan and Boltzman empirically found a relationship that related luminosity to a constant times the fourth power of the temperature of the black body. Wien found a relationship between the wavelength at peak intensity and temperature of the black body. Both of the the Stefan-Boltzman and Wien relationships were in good agreement with actual data for the relationships between R, T and wavelength. At low black body temperatures, R was low and wavelengths were long. As temperatures reached a certain level, wavelengths became shorted and reached a peak abdunce where R was greatest. Then as wavelenths grew still shorter, R dropped towads zero as wavelenghts approached zero.</p>
<p>It was believed their should be an equation that would predict and describe these relations and could be used to derive the Stefan-Boltzman and Wien laws. Rayleiegh and Jeans, using principles strictly from classical mechanics and E&M developed an equation that should have worked since it was based on well known and tested concepts. However, while it gave a reasonably good fit to the data at long wavelengths it failed completely at shorter wavelengths giving R that reached a peak and then fell to zero as wavelength went to zero, it had R going to infinity as wavelenghts became shorter. This was known as the “ultar-violet catastrophe”.</p>
<p>In 1900, Max Planck came up with the radical idea that instead of being strictly a wave phenomenon with continuous energy distribution, light was actually discreet particles of energy that were restricted to certain quantized values. He developed the Planck Equation that allowed for this quantization of R. This equation can be found on Widipedia. The predictions of the Planck equation were in excellent agreement with the experimental data and quantitative physics was born. </p>
<p>You can actually derive the Stefan-Boltzman Law and Wien’s Law from the Planck equation if you have a good knowledge of Differential and Integral Calculus. You just have to be aware that in deriving Wien’s law you will get an equation that can not be solved analytically and you will have to use numerical techniques and the Stefan-Boltzman law will confront you with evaluation of an integral of an integral that requires facility in the Gamma function and the Reinman Zeta Function to solve. Or, you could just look it up in a table of integrals.</p>
<p>You need to give a few more details about your problem with particles in a box before I can understand what you are asking and if I can respond.</p>
<p>Thank you so much!</p>
<p>I’m basically trying to understand the Schrodinger’s equation. To help understanding, the book is telling me to think of a “particle in a box” where there is a box with an electron or photon in it. But this still does not help me much.
I just want to know what Schrodinger’s Equation is for. What is it used for? What data do I need in order to use it? The equation has so many different variables that it’s so confusing.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>