Gustav Kirchhoff

Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (March 12, 1824 - October 17, 1887), physicist whowell knownhis electrical rules, Kirchhoff's voltage lawKirchhoff's current law, whichfundamentalcircuit analysiselectrical engineering. He was bornKönigsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia)diedBerlin, Germany.

In his spectroscopic collaborationBunsen, he wasco-discoverercaesiumrubidium.

Tablecontents

1 Kirchhoff's LawRadiation 2 Kirchhoff's Radiation Laws 3 Reference

Kirchhoff's LawRadiation

Kirchhoff formulatedfollowing law1859, followed byproof1861.

The rateemissionenergy bybodyequal torate at whichbody absorbs energy (both emissionabsorption being ingiven direction atgiven wavelength).

In 1862 he introducedterm black body radiation. Later, he produced three empirical laws describingspectral compositionlight emitted by incandescent objects.

Kirchhoff's Radiation Laws

1. A hot solid object produces light withcontinuous spectrum.
2. A hot tenuous gas produces lightspectral lines at discrete wavelengths (i.e. specific colors) which depend onenergy levels ofatoms ingas.
3. A hot solid object surrounded bycool tenuous gas (i.e. cooler thanhot object) produces lightan almost continuous spectrum which has gaps at discrete wavelengths depending onenergy levels ofatoms ingas.

Reference

• Short biography