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Wien Derives Displacement Law
- When
- 1893
- Where
- unknown
In 1893, Wilhelm Wien derived Wien's displacement law using a thermodynamic argument, establishing the inverse relationship between peak wavelength and temperature.
Wien deduced the law theoretically in 1893, following Boltzmann's thermodynamic reasoning. The law states that the black-body radiation curve peaks at wavelengths inversely proportional to temperature. This derivation described the shift of the spectrum toward shorter wavelengths as temperature increases, predating Planck's more general equation.
Sources
- Wien's displacement law Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-30
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.