Radiation Pressure - Theory

Theory

It may be shown by electromagnetic theory, by quantum theory, or by thermodynamics, making no assumptions as to the nature of the radiation, that the pressure against a surface exposed in a space traversed by radiation uniformly in all directions is equal to one third of the total radiant energy per unit volume within that space.

Quantitatively, this can be expressed as

,

for a radiation energy density, at a temperature . Here, the radiation constant, where is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, and is the speed of light.

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