A law of thermal radiation in which the radiation of all wavelengths per second per square metre from a black body at an absolute temperature T to surroundings at temperature To is proportional to the fourth power of the absolute temperatures: . The proportionality constant, σ, is known as the Stefan–Boltzmann constant equal to 5.669 7 × 10−8 W m−2 K−4 . The law is named after Austrian physicists Josef Stefan (1853–93) and Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann (1844–1906) who theoretically derived the equation.