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Why are the graphs for the distribution of light from the Sun as a function of (a) frequency and (b) wavelength not exactly reversed? (www.wtamu.edu)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by BackOnMyBS to c/askscience

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I thought that the frequency of light was directly inverse to the wavelength by a constant. In other words, I assumed that graphing the frequency of light as a function of wavelength would be a straight inverse line. Because of that, the graphs for the distribution of light from the sun as functions of frequency and wavelength would be exactly the same, but reversed. Yet, this is not what is reported in the linked article. Even more confusing to me is that the different functions peak at different light. When as a function of frequency, the light peaks at infrared. When as a function of wavelength, the light peaks at violet.

What am I misunderstanding? Is the frequency of light not directly proportional to it's wavelength? Or is this something to do with the way we are measuring the light from the Sun?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I would assume that the difference comes from the fact that the same intervals of light will correspond to intervals of different length when plotted by frequency vs when plotted by wavelength, thus making one of them appear higher, while the other is just wider

[–] BackOnMyBS 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Why would the intervals be different?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What I mean is that, for example, the interval from 1eV to 2eV has the same length as the one from 2eV to 3eV, yet they correspond to the intervals from 1/2 to 1 and from 1/3 to 1/2 (dropping units and constants), which have different lengths.

[–] BackOnMyBS 1 points 6 months ago

oooHHHhhhh! Then, does that explain why the wavelength one has a long skewed right distribution while the frequency one has more of a slope in the other direction if we adjust the scales to match the x-axis on colors?