Magnetizable and Polarizable Elastic Materials

Abstract

In research on materials, it is not unusual for workers to be unaware of good ideas and results produced long ago, and I will discuss a case in point. When workers became acquainted with radiation pressure, it stimulated them to consider the possibility that electromagnetic fields could not only exert forces on matter, but that matter could exert forces on fields, extending ideas of action and reaction to combinations of these. I will present a formulation of these ideas and a similar one about energies, then use them to formulate a theory of materials that can be magnetized and polarized, one that can be compared with various theories of this kind in the literature. There are important differences between the theory presented here and most of the others. So, this provides food for thought as to what should be taken as bases for formulating such theories.