Page:Eddington A. Space Time and Gravitation. 1920.djvu/127

CH. VII], which drives outwards the smaller or the more absorptive particles.

It is legitimate to speak of a pound of light as we speak of a pound of any other substance. The mass of ordinary quantities of light is however extremely small, and I have calculated that at the low charge of 3d. a unit, an Electric Light Company would have to sell light at the rate of £140,000,000 a pound. All the sunlight falling on the earth amounts to 160 tons daily.

It is perhaps not easy to realise how a wave-motion can have inertia, and it is still more difficult to understand what is meant by its having weight. Perhaps this will be better understood if we put the problem in a concrete form. Imagine a hollow body, with radiant heat or light-waves traversing the hollow; the mass of the body will be the sum of the masses of the material and of the radiant energy in the hollow; a greater force will be required to shift it because of the light-waves contained in it. Now let us weigh it with scales or a spring-balance. Will it also weigh heavier on account of the radiation contained, or will the weight be that of the solid material alone? If the former, then clearly from this aspect light has weight; and it is not difficult to deduce the effect of this weight on a freely moving light-beam not enclosed within a hollow.

The effect of weight is that the radiation in the hollow body acquires each second a downward momentum proportional to its mass. This in the long run is transmitted to the material enclosing it. For a free light-wave in space, the added momentum combines with the original momentum, and the total momentum determines the direction of the ray, which is accordingly bent. Newton's theory suggests no means for bringing about the bending, but contents itself with predicting it on general principles. Einstein's theory provides a means, viz. the variation of velocity of the waves.

Hitherto mass and weight have always been found associated in strict proportionality. One very important test had already shown that this proportionality is not confined to material energy. The substance uranium contains a great deal of radio-active energy, presumably of an electromagnetic nature, which it slowly liberates. The mass of this energy must be an appreciable fraction of the whole mass of the substance. But it was shown