Ultraviolet Catastrophe

From Slackerpedia Galactica

The best name for a rock band ever.

Also a consequence of Rayleigh's mathematical approximation of a blackbody. Rayleigh's approximation stated that the amount of light a radiating blackbody gave off at a given wavelength was inversely proportional to the wavelength you were observing at. A natural consequence of this is that when you switch on your toaster, you should be zapped by an infinitely strong blast of gamma rays.

Clearly this doesn't happen, at least not in my kitchen. Rayleigh's approximation fit the spectrum of blackbodies at long wavelengths quite nicely, but failed catastrophically at short wavelengths.

Hence the ultraviolet catastrophe.

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Rayleigh's catastrophe was eventually resolved by Max Planck, who ushered in the age of quantum mechanics with his mathematical description of blackbodies -- it behaved like Rayleigh's approximation at long wavelengths, and Wilhelm Wien's approximation at short wavelengths.