Consider an incandescent light bulb.If you wanted to turn a 10 W light bulb into a 100 W light bulb,how would you change the temperature of the filament inside the bulb?
A) Raise its temperature by a factor of 3.2
B) Raise its temperature by a factor of 1.8
C) Lower its temperature by a factor of 2.6
D) Lower its temperature by a factor of 5.4

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The power output of an incandescent light bulb is proportional to the temperature of the filament raised to the fourth power. This means that if we want to increase the power output by a factor of 10 (from 10 W to 100 W), we need to increase the temperature of the filament by a factor of the 4th root of 10, which is about 1.8. Therefore, we would need to raise the temperature of the filament by a factor of 1.8 to turn a 10 W light bulb into a 100 W light bulb.

Consider an Incandescent Light Bulb