“We owe to Kirchhoff..., the first rigorous proof of the celebrated law (...Kirchhoff's law) of the emission and absorption of light and heat, and the application of the same by both Kirchhoff and Bunsen to Spectrum Analysis. The radiation of solids and liquids and gases follows the law exactly when the conditions upon which he founded it are rigorously fulfilled, namely, the complete transformation from one to the other of radiant energy and their intrinsic {{w|heat}}.”