Name Rado Kovesligethy | ||
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Radó von Kövesligethy (in Hungarian usage, Kövesligethy Radó) (Verona, Austria, Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1 September 1862 – Budapest, Hungary 11 October 1934), was a Hungarian physicist, astronomer and geophysicist. The first successful spectral equation of black body radiation was the theory of the continuous spectra of celestial bodies by Rado von Kövesligethy, published 15 years before Planck, in 1885 in Hungarian and in 1890 in German. He derived a spectral equation with the following properties: the spectral distribution of radiation depends only on the temperature, the total irradiated energy is finite (15 years before Planck!), the wavelength of the intensity maximum is inversely proportional to the temperature (eight years before Wien!). Using his spectral equation, he estimated the temperature of several celestial bodies, including the Sun.
He also formulated laws to establish the epicenters of earthquakes.
He was an assistant to Loránd Eötvös.
In 1895, he was elected as a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and later (1909) as a full member.