The question was examined by Maxwell[1] from the point of view of the electromagnetic theory of light; which readily furnishes reasons for the existence of light-pressure. For suppose that light falls on a metallic reflecting surface at perpendicular incidence. The light may be regarded as constituted of a rapidly-alternating magnetic field, and this must induce electric currents in the surface layers of the metal. But. a metal carrying currents in a magnetic field is acted on by a ponderomotive force, which is at right angles to both the magnetic force and the direction of the current, and is therefore, in the present case, normal to the reflecting surface: this ponderomotive force is the light-pressure. Thus, according to Maxwell's theory, light-pressure is only an extended case of effects which may readily be produced in the laboratory.
The magnitude of the light-pressure was deduced by Maxwell from his theory of stresses in the medium. We have seen that the stress across a plane whose unit-normal is N is represented by the vector
.
Now, suppose that a plane wave is incident perpendicularly on a perfectly reflecting metallic sheet: this sheet must support the mechanical stress which exists at its boundary in the aether. Owing to the presence of the reflected wave, D is zero at the surface; and B is perpendicular to N, so (B.N) vanishes. Thus the stress is a pressure of magnitude (1/8π) (B.H) normal to the surface: that is, the light-pressure is equal to the density of the aethereal energy in the region immediately outside the metal. This was Maxwell's result.
This conclusion has been reached on the assumption that the light is incident normally to the reflecting surface. If, on the other hand, the surface is placed in an enclosure completely surrounded by a radiating shell, so that radiation falls on it from all directions, it may be shown that the light-pressure is measured by one-third of the density of aethereal energy.
- ↑ Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and magnetism, § 792.
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