(23 Feb 2009)
A student wrote:
I had a question about the last problem on the homework. The last part of the question asks which of the lights on a traffic light has the smallest wavelength of peak emission and which has the largest. However, I thought the wavelength of peak emission had to do with temperature. I didn't think there was a temperature difference in the lights of a traffic light.

I replied:
yeah -- you are correct. well, you could answer this question one of two ways: either honestly -- in that the temperatures of the lights are probably the same -- or else you could pretend that the temperatures were slightly different, and that the colors reflect those temperature differences.

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Last modified 23 February 2009