Blackbody Spectrum analysis made easy. How does the blackbody spectrum of the sun compare to visible light? Learn about the blackbody spectrum of the sun, a light bulb, an oven, and the earth. Adjust the temperature to see the wavelength and intensity of the spectrum change. View the color of the peak of the spectral curve.

Sample Learning Goals
1. Describe what happens to the blackbody spectrum as you increase the temperature. What happens to the shape of the curve and the peak of this curve?
2. What happens to the blackbody spectrum as you decrease the temperature?
3. Set the temperature to that of a light bulb (around 3000K). Based on this information, do lightbulbs seem efficient? Why do light bulbs get hot?
4. Imagine that you see 2 hot, glowing objects--one is glowing orange and the other is glowing blue. Which one is hotter?

Non-obvious controls:
1. Change the temperature with the slider or by typing into the text box above it.
2. If you change the temperature by a large amount, you will probably need to use the zoom buttons on both axes to see the new spectrum.
3. Use Save to compare spectra for different temperatures.
4. Show ruler to compare the heights of different spectra. Note that the units on the ruler don't relate to the units on the graph. This should be thought of as putting a physical ruler on top of a picture of a graph.

Requirements:
* Java

The license of this software is Free, you can free download and free use this calculator software.