Blackbody Radiation from an Incandescent Lamp

C. I. Ribeiro

Citation: The Physics Teacher 52, 371 (2014); doi: 10.1119/1.4893096

View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.4893096
View Table of Contents: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aapt/journal/tpt/52/6?ver=pdfcov
Published by the American Association of Physics Teachers

Articles you may be interested in

Engineering absorption and blackbody radiation in the far-infrared with surface phonon polaritons on gallium
phosphide
Appl. Phys. Lett. 104, 131105 (2014); 10.1063/1.4870255

On the Intensity Profile of Electric Lamps and Light Bulbs

Phys. Teach. 51, 491 (2013); 10.1119/1.4824947

Physics of Incandescent Lamp Burnout

Phys. Teach. 46, 29 (2008); 10.1119/1.2823997

A New Method of Evaluating the Effective Spectral Emissivity of Blackbody Radiators without Measuring the
Temperature Distribution
AIP Conf. Proc. 684, 645 (2003); 10.1063/1.1627200

Basic physics of the incandescent lamp (lightbulb)

Phys. Teach. 37, 520 (1999); 10.1119/1.880392

This article is copyrighted as indicated in the article. Reuse of AAPT content is subject to the terms at: http://scitation.aip.org/termsconditions. Downloaded to IP:
130.236.84.134 On: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 14:00:38
 Blackbody Radiation from an
Incandescent Lamp
C. I. Ribeiro, Escola Artística Soares dos Reis, Porto, Portugal

I
n this article we propose an activity aimed at intro- For different voltages and electric currents, the lamp will
ductory students to help them understand the Stefan- reach different temperatures and will shine differently. To
Boltzmann and Wien’s displacement laws. It only understand the brightness of the filament at different tem-
requires simple materials that are available at any school: peratures, we used a simulation of the Blackbody Spectrum
an incandescent lamp, a variable dc energy supply, and a 2.02 simulator, available at the PhET Interactive Simulations
computer to run an interactive simulation of the blackbody Project website (http://phet.colorado.edu/sims/blackbody-
spectrum. Essentially, the activity consists of calculating the spectrum/blackbody-spectrum_en.html). This simulation
filament’s temperature for different values of electric power also allows the study of Wien’s displacement law that graphic-
and comparing the color and brightness of the lamp’s light, ally shows irradiated power versus wavelength of a blackbody
as seen by the eye, with the correspondent (simulated) black- at different temperatures.
body spectrum. Although the comparison is only qualitative,
we find that the activity provides a tangible introduction to Experimental details
blackbody radiation. The experimental setup is
An incandescent lamp is a good choice for the study of illustrated in Fig. 1, with an in-
blackbodies: it’s cheap and easy to acquire. Its filament can candescent lamp connected to
reach temperatures high enough to emit visible light, but a variable dc energy supply. The
without danger to students or teachers. Incandescent lamps lamp used has the follow-
have already been used to study the Stefan-Boltzmann law,1-4 ing characteristics: 6 V and
but in this article we propose a simplified version, with ma- 5 W. This lamp’s filament has
terial adapted to the Portuguese physics curriculum (10th- a diameter of 0.054 mm and a
grade students, 15–16 years old). length of 23 mm, values that Fig. 1. A dc power supply
To begin, students are introduced to the total power (P) ra- were given by the manufacturer. connected to an incandes-
diated by a body in terms of its surface area (A) and the fourth cent lamp.
Table I. Tabulated results.
power of the body’s temperature (T). Because the lamp fila-
ment is not a perfect blackbody, the Stefan-Boltzmann equa- U (V) I (A) d(x10-5 m) l(x10-2 m) T(K)
tion must be written to include its emissivity (): (calcu-
lated)

P =  3 A 3 s 3 T 4 , (1) 1.1 0.29 1425

2.0 0.37 1758
where s is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant (s = 5.67310-8 2.9 0.45 5.4 2.3 2026
W∙m−2 ∙ K−4) and, for the lamp’s tungsten filament,  =
3.8 0.51 2237
0.35.2,3
4.9 0.58 2462
It is assumed that the total power radiated by the filament
is equal to the electric power (Pe) input to the lamp, where U
is the voltage and I the electric current:

Pe = U 3 I. (2)

If Eqs. (1) and (2) are the same, then the filament’s tempera-
ture is:
(3)
It was also assumed that the filament is a uniform cylinder
with a surface area A = dπl, where d is the filament diameter
and l the filament length. Equation (3) can be rewritten as:
(4)
Fig. 2. Incandescent lamp filament at, respectively, 1425 K,
2026 K, and 2462 K (calculated temperature).
The lamp was turned on with different voltages across it.
Voltage and current were measured by the dc power supply
and, using Eq. (4), the corresponding temperature of the fila-
ment was calculated (Table I). Figure 2 shows the filament at
some of the calculated temperatures.
The blackbody spectra (Fig. 3) were computer generated
by the Blackbody Spectrum 2.02 simulator.

DOI: 10.1119/1.4893096 The Physics Teacher ◆ Vol. 52, September 2014 371
This article is copyrighted as indicated in the article. Reuse of AAPT content is subject to the terms at: http://scitation.aip.org/termsconditions. Downloaded to IP:
130.236.84.134 On: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 14:00:38
 Fig. 3. Spectrum of a blackbody at, respectively, 1425 K, 2026 K, and 2462 K (PhET Interactive Simulations,
University of Colorado; http://phet.colorado.edu).
Discussion
The spectrum simulations (Fig. 3) are in agreement with
what can be observed in Fig. 2: at 1425 K a blackbody practi-
cally emits no visible light and neither does the filament; at
2026 K the light emitted is more intense and consists mostly
of light from the red/orange part of the visible spectrum, re-
sponsible for the lamp’s reddish light; and at 2462 K the light
is even more intense and yellower, because now it emits more
radiation from the yellow part of the visible spectrum.
The spectra from Fig. 3 also help students to understand
Wien’s displacement law: as temperature increases, the wave-
length corresponding to the most intense radiation decreases,
which explains the change of color observed. Teachers can
also use these spectra to explore the low efficiency of incan-
descent lamps, since most of the radiation emitted is infrared,
and the reason why they are being removed from the market.
Fermi Questions
w Question 1: Spider silk
What is the total volume of silk spun by spiders
each year? The total length? (Thanks to Evan Jones,
professor emeritus, Sierra College, Rocklin, CA, for
suggesting the question and discussing the answer.)
372 The Physics Teacher ◆ Vol. 52, September 2014
This article is copyrighted as indicated in the article. Reuse of AAPT content is subject to the terms at: http://scitation.aip.org/termsconditions. Downloaded to IP:
130.236.84.134 On: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 14:00:38
References
1. The Stefan-Boltzmann law at http://www3.wooster.edu/
physics/jris/Files/Wellons_Web_article.pdf (accessed March
2013).
2. W. S. Wagner, “Temperature and color of incandescent lamps,”
Phys. Teach. 29, 176–177 (March 1991).
3. I. Ahmad, S. Khalid, and E. E. Khawaja, “Filament temperature
of low power incandescent lamps: Stefan-Boltzmann law,” Lat.
Am. J. Phy. Educ. 4, 74–78 (2010).
4. R. R. Kanchi and N. K. Uttarkar, “Study of heat loss from hot
tungsten filament bulb using AT89C51 based data acquisition
system,” Int. J. Appl. Phys. Math. 2, 194–6 (2012).
Carla Isabel Ribeiro has been a chemistry and physics teacher at a
Portuguese public school for about 15 years with interests in several
areas, including astronomy.
ciribeiro@portugalmail.pt
Larry Weinstein, Column Editor
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA 23529;
weinstein@odu.edu
w Question 2: Traffic lights
How much time do we spend per year waiting for
traffic lights to turn green, both individually and as a
nation?
Look for the answers online at tpt.aapt.org.
Question suggestions are always welcome!
For more Fermi questions and answers, see
the now available Guesstimation 2.0: Solving
Today's Problems on the Back of a Napkin, by
Lawrence Weinstein (Princeton University
Press, 2012).
DOI: 10.1119/1.4893097