A physical law stating that the total energy radiated by a blackbody is proportional to the fourth power of its temperature. This law allows astronomers to calculate stellar luminosities and sizes from temperature measurements.
Named after Austrian physicists Josef Stefan (who discovered it empirically in 1879) and Ludwig Boltzmann (who derived it theoretically in 1884). The law emerged from thermodynamics and became fundamental to understanding stellar energy output.
The Stefan-Boltzmann law reveals why small changes in temperature create huge changes in brightness! If you double a star's temperature, it doesn't just get twice as bright - it gets 16 times brighter! This is why blue giant stars can outshine red giants that are hundreds of times larger.
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