An act of desparation that remade the world.

Blackbody radiation is the electromagnetic radiation emitted by an ideal object that absorbs all incoming light and reflects none. Its spectrum depends only on temperature: as the object grows hotter, it radiates more energy and its peak emission shifts toward shorter wavelengths. This deceptively simple model helped expose the failure of classical physics and opened the door to quantum theory when Max Planck proposed that energy is emitted in discrete packets. Real objects are not perfect blackbodies, but many approximate one closely enough to make the model extraordinarily useful. It is used primarily in astrophysics, thermal engineering, and quantum physics.