INSTRUCTIONS:
The curve shown with blue dots
is a Planck distribution of
unknown temperature. The red
curve is a guess. You may change
the guess by changing the
temperature textfield at the
upper right and doing a return.
Guess the correct temperature
in as few tries as possible. The
computer will keep your score and
announce when you have guessed
correctly.
It isn't necessary to guess T
exactly.
Any temperature within 1% of the
reference will be accepted as correct.
You may try a new
example at any time by clicking 'New'.
HINTS: You may improve your
score by noting that according to Wien's
Law the peak location varies as
1/T, where T is the temperature,
but area under the curve varies
more rapidly-as the 4th power of
T, according to the Steffan-
Boltzmann Law. Thus, increasing T
a moderate amount leads to a
small shift of the peak to shorter
wavelengths, but the area under
the curve (and thus the height)
increases much more dramatically.
The plot is always normalized so that the
peak of the unknown curve is equal to unity.
Thus, the guess will give a plot that is offscale
if the guessed temperature is too high. When any
part of the guessed-temperature plot is offscale
an offscale flag is displayed. This is an indication
that the guessed temperature is (perhaps substantially)
too high.
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