I never understood how the equipartition theorem was applied electromagnetic waves inside the metallic blackbody. As hyperphysics puts it (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/%E2%80%8Chbase/mod7.html)
The classical view treats all electromagnetic modes of the cavity as equally likely because you can add an infinitesmal amount of energy to any mode
But the existence of the modes is conditioned to the existence of certain movements by the particle, so I don't see it as a "degree of freedom". For example, for a high frequency mode to exist there should be electrons jiggling with a certain frequency. I expected some sort of statistic on electrons speed and acceleration for a given temperature, like from the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, to derive the expected electromagnetic radiation spectrum for the blackbody.
1) Why are the electromagnetic modes are considered "degrees of freedom" if their existence is conditioned to the motion of the electrons? If they actually aren't, please explain it
2) Does an alternative (non cavity + modes) approach exist? I was thinking fluctuations of charge density on the surface of a solid metal sphere due to temperature.
