this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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I think this is only true for some non intuitive definition of "temperature" of the light source. Fireflies aren't a blackbody radiator, while the sun largely is. You absolutely can use non-equilibrium/non-blackbody light sources to heat something to hotter than the source. For example, lasers can heat something extremely hot while remaining "cool" (unless you're considering the non equilibrium temperature of their excited atoms/electrons, which isn't really fair.)
Strictly speaking, you are correct. The key assumption for my statement above is that both objects are black-body radiators.
In practical terms, it still ain't happening when the light source is a bunch of fireflies.
Aside: Lasers are a really weird case. The population inversion required for stimulated emission is basically the opposite of a classic thermal equilibrium. By some definitions, they are so hot their "temperature" wraps around to negative (i.e., less than zero Kelvin). That factoid took me a while to wrap my head around.