Planck Radiation Formula

From the assumption that the electromagnetic modes in a cavity were quantized in energy with the quantum energy equal to Planck's constant times the frequency, Planck derived a radiation formula. The average energy per "mode" or "quantum" is the energy of the quantum times the probability that it will be occupied (the Einstein-Bose distribution function):

This average energy times the density of such states, expressed in terms of either frequency or wavelength

gives the energy density, the Planck radiation formula.

	Example
	Example

The Planck radiation formula is an example of the distribution of energy according to Bose-Einstein statistics. The above expressions are obtained by multiplying the density of states in terms of frequency or wavelength times the photon energy times the Bose-Einstein distribution function with normalization constant A=1.

To find the radiated power per unit area from a surface at this temperature, multiply the energy density by c/4. The density above is for thermal equilibrium, so setting inward=outward gives a factor of 1/2 for the radiated power outward. Then one must average over all angles, which gives another factor of 1/2 for the angular dependence which is the square of the cosine.

Major applications of the Planck formula