Question

Analogy to explain ultra violet catastrophe and beginning of quantum mechanics

So i saw this minute physics video.. which uses the analogy of kids eating cookies.. and i thought it didn't do it that well.. so i extended this analogy.. i wanna know what you guys think about it


Rayleigh jean's law : in simple words it says, at any temperature a black body would radiate most of its energy at high frequency (like ultraviolet).. and only small amts in low frequency (like visible or IR).
To explain this i use this analogy
imagine a lotsof kids who are ready to eat cookies.

Answer 1

I divide them into 3 categories
infra kids.. who eat them exremely slow

visible kids .. who eat them at good pace

and ultra kids.. who eat them almost instantaneously

now i put all these kids together, and lets say i put 100 cookies.. since infra kids eat slow, by the time they would have gobbled up some 2 or 3, visible would have gobbled like some 10.. and by then ultra guys would have finished it off

regardless of how many cookies i put in the room, the outcome would be the same.. ultra guys eating cookies off..

this is what ray leigh jean law is saying

is that good enough ? :P @AllTehMaffs

Answer 2

Next i explain.. how this is wrong.. cause if this was true.. everything would cooling off instantaneously using high frequency radiation to carry away the energy.. and so everywehre we would have UV rays.. and everything would be cold.. and this is basically the UV catastrophe ..

u see.. i don't want to explain this quantitatively.. this is only to give them a sort of not so technical history

Answer 3

Then i would tell them the actual black body radiation curve.. and how the maxwell's laws were a disaster when it came to explaining them..
i would draw three curves low temp, energy peak at IR, high temp energy peak at visible and very high temp, energy peak at UV region..

so to explain this Planck proposed quantum theory.. so i go back to the analogy.. and say..
these kids cannot eat any number of chocolates they want.. but only specific

IF kids can eat only 2 (each kid)

Visible kids only 100

and ultra kids only 500

now i put 50 chocolates in the room.. since visible can only eat 100 or nothing.. they don't participate at all.. and so its the IF kids who take away all the cookies or energy

if i put 100.. its more likely that again IF kids taking it away, than one visible kid eating it all..
so as i increase the no. of chocolates to say like 300 or 400.. now.. visible guys will start participating and finally if i do that for like 5000 chocolates.. now ultra kids will come into the picture..

so basically small frequency of light carry away energy in small packets (like IF 2 chocolates)

and high frequency of light carry away energy in big packets (like Ultra)..

is this good enough?!

Answer 4

@Vincent-Lyon.Fr

Answer 5

I think that's fantastic!

Answer 6

thanks man :) :) :)!!!

Answer 7

this has nothing to do with the analogy, just proof editing stuff. You say chocolates instead of cookies for most of the second half; and maybe instead of saying "can and can't," maybe say "will and won't" - minor, minor things though. ^_^

Answer 8

oh yea haha.. correct.. :P cookies it is!.. will and won't would make more sense.. !!