Indeed, one of the most important thermodynamic laws—the so-called Stefan-Boltzmann equation—seems to tie the wiggles of molecules to the wiggles of light. It relates the temperature of an object to the total amount of light energy it radiates. This was the biggest victory for statistical mechanics and the wave theory of light. (The equation states that the radiated energy is proportional to the temperature raised to the fourth power. It not only tells how much radiation an object gives off, but also how hot an object gets when irradiated with a given amount of energy. This is the law that
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