Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> I was under the impression that the colour temperature tells you roughly
> how the signal power is distributed over the whole spectrum.

Roughly, in that it tells you where the peak is and the general shape of the
rest of the spectrum.

> Yeah, both stars and lightbulbs presumably put out far more IR and radio
> waves than visible light...

Actually, many stars peak in the visible - Betelgeuse is red. Ours is yellow. I
think maybe lightbulbs peak in the IR (lower temperature), so all we see is a
section of the tail of the spectrum.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_body

Post a reply to this message