Rayleigh–Jeans law
Ley de Rayleigh-Jeans
- Date
- 1900-1905 · confidence medium
- Place
- Terling Place, Essex, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- John William Strutt (Lord Rayleigh) and James Jeans
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
Rayleigh derived in 1900 the λ⁻⁴ dependence of a blackbody's spectral radiance from classical arguments; in 1905 he and, independently, Jeans (and also Einstein) completed the formula with its proportionality constant.
The law predicts radiance diverging at high frequencies (the 'ultraviolet catastrophe'); Planck had already found in 1900 a law without that divergence, of which Rayleigh–Jeans is the low-frequency limit. Rayleigh's location (Terling Place, his estate) and Jeans's (Cambridge) do not fully match; Rayleigh's is used here for consistency with another milestone already in the catalogue.
What it led to
- Exposed the 'ultraviolet catastrophe' of classical physics
- Spurred Planck's radiation law (1900) and the birth of quantum theory