Magnifying Visors

How hot is the heat from a magnifying glass?

It is possible to use a magnifying glass to concentrate the light of the sun... does any one know at what temperature this concentrated light is? Please identify sources.

Public Comments

1. Paper burns at 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. That is a variable with near infinite answers. How big a lens, how far from the target point used to measure the temperature, how "hot" the sun is at the time, etc. etc. The same test, with all things equal, would give different results just depending on the time of year. Some time ago, there was a program to send a satalite to space and with a large lense, beam sun light to an earth station for a power sorce, it was scrapped due if it was not properly aimed it could set a city on fire.
3. Well my friend i will help u. See when u concentrate the light of sun with help of magnifying glass the temperature almost reaches to one when we get when we burn a match stick. That is temperature is almost about 1000*c. You can check ths out by placing a paper in sunglight and then with magnifying glass, concentrate the heat in form of small dot. You will see paper will start burning. Do this experiment. Even try to place ur finger, u will find as if u got burnt form matchstick.
4. The temperature at the focal point of a magnifying glass would depend on several factors, including, size of the lens, solar power output at your location, surface you are focusing the light onto, .... There is no one answer for this question, there are too many variables to consider and your question is too general.
5. The electromagnetic spectrum of the sun is such that if the sun radiates as a "black body" its surface temperature would be approximately 5800 Kelvin. By simply using a magnifying glass, this should be the upper limit of the temperature that you can achieve. The reason is because by using a magnifying glass you are only changing the intensity of the radiation of the Sun. Temperature is dependent on the kinetic energy of the atoms in the system, and since the kinetic energy of the atoms will depend on the frequency of the light (not the intensity), this is what determines the upper limit on the temperature you can achieve.
6. How hot is concentrated light, what is the temp of the sun? WELL WE HAVE A ENERGY SHORTAGE, ONLY AT SUNSET. I read about Solar collection in power plants like Solar One. In these plants the where they make molten salt, for heat transfer for running steam generator. At the reciever of Solar One plant or concentrated light point temperature reachest approximately 1,050 Fahrenheit. THIS LINK IS ABOUT YOUR SUN AND THE TEMPS ARE HOT. SO HOW MUCH LIGHT CAN WE CONDENTRATE MORE DEVELOPMENT IN SOLAR SAILS http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/hframe.html Earth's Sun is a medium-sized star which lies on the main sequence with 90% of the known stars. It has a effective surface temperature is 5780 K, putting it in spectral class G2. Its mass is 1.989 x 1030 kg and its mean radius is 6.96 x 108 meters. The mass of the sun is over 99.8% of the mass of the entire known solar system, leading de Pater and Lissauer to refer lightly to the solar system as "the Sun plus some debris". The sun radiates energy at the rate of 3.85 x1026 watts. Just outside the earth's atmosphere solar energy is received, assuming normal incidence, at the rate of 1340 watts per square meter. The orbit of Earth ranges from 1.47 to 1.52 x 1011 meters from the Sun. The average light travel time to the earth is 8.3 minutes. The radius of the sun at 696,000 km is 109 times the Earth's radius. Its surface gravity is 274 m/s2 or 28.0 times that of the Earth. Its mean density is 1410 kg/m3 or 0.255 times the mean density of Earth. The composition of the sun is 71% hydrogen, 27.1% helium and less than 2% of all other elements. The center temperature is modeled to be 15.5 million K. The Sun is fueled by the proton cycle of nuclear fusion. Escape velocity = 618 km/s SO