ABSTRACT
Maxwell calculated the velocity distribution of molecules in an ideal gas and found that the distribution had a similar characteristic shape that also depended on the temperature of the gas.
mo ecu es, us ea ng o e em ss on of radiation with a characteristic intensity spectrum. Wien’s predictions agreed well with experimental results at high frequencies but did not fit well at low frequencies. Rayleigh and Jeans performed more rigorous calculations and found that the predicted radiation emission spectrum agreed well at low frequencies but had an ever increasing intensity at higher frequencies – a feature they termed the ultraviolet catastrophe.
