I am not 100% sure about the formula you wrote yourself since I didn't actually do the problem out myself, but the methodology in the link you posted is correct. They do take the gradient of the potential to get the force, which is what you can do for any system, and the maxwell's force formula...
Yep, that's it! I'm just talking about a generalization of the concept here, not implying that there are physical dipoles aligning with the field in a vacuum (because then you would have to ask what the field would look like "outside" of the vacuum, which is not a concept). But just what you...
The polarization interpretation isn't quite correct: The fields change in amplitude in the direction of polarization, but that is the field along the axis of the photon -- the field is not defined away from that axis. The picture of a wave going up and down along the propagation direction is not...
These are great questions! First off, it's important to know that speeds don't actually add in the way we normally treat them. This is because when we observe an object, we are actually observing light emitted by the object and thus, the fastest that information can travel is c. It's pretty...
Hi folks,
It was always my understanding that the 'meaning' behind these numbers is relatively simple: when we talk about permittivity or permeability, we're setting the scale for the electric or magnetic polarizability of the vacuum. Ie, the general electric field is the displacement field...