In 2016 the sculptor Anish Kapoor used Vantablack, a pigment said to be the blackest ever made, to coat his Cloud Gate sculpture in Chicago (1). How is blackness defined and measured? How does the pigment work?
A black body is one that absorbs all electromagnetic radiation; it is a perfect absorber. It is also an ideal radiator, emitting radiation that depends only on its temperature and size (2). The total power, P, radiated by a black body is given by:
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