Small Group Activity: Thermal radiation at twice the temperature

Contemporary Challenges 2021
This small group activity has students reasoning about how the Planck distribution shifts when the temperature is doubled. This leads to a qualitative argument for the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
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This small whiteboard question introduces the Stefan-Boltzmann law.
Question:
When the temperature of a black surface is doubled, what happens to the total energy emitted per unit time?
  1. Increase by 2 times
  2. Increase by 4 times
  3. Increase by 8 times
  4. Increase by 16 times

Keywords
Stefan-Boltzmann blackbody radiation
Learning Outcomes