Lorentz transformation of blackbody radiation
In a paper entitled "Lorentz transformation of blackbody radiation" (Phys. Rev. E 88, 044101, 2013), G. W. Ford andRobert O'Connell have solved a problem which numerous authors have worked on over a time span exceeding a hundred years. This is the question of how temperature behaves under a Lorentz transformation. Both Einstein in 1907 and Planck in 1908 published results which disagreed with each other and both of which proved to be incorrect. The reason why the problem remained unsolved for so many years was the fact that no experimental evidence existed to provide a check on the huge variety of theoretical methods employed. By constrast, Ford and O'Connell employed the experimental results for the spectrum of the universal cosmic blackbody radiation measured by Earth observers who are in different reference frames because of their motion through the 2.7K radiation. Despite the fact that kT behaves like an energy, it turns out that T does not change in a Lorentz transformation.