Conclusion of a review paper:
Reference:
Beyer, Robert T. ‘Radiation Pressure—the History of a Mislabeled Tensor’. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 63, no. 4 (1978): 1025–30. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.381833.
One of the underappreciated facts is the amount of work that people did to bring Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism to the form that we use today. Among many enthusiastic researchers, five names often come into the picture, and they are Poynting, Heaviside, Fitzgerald, Lodge, and Hertz. Without their contribution, we would have been seeing a very different form of Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory and the equations named after Maxwell. As Loudon and Baxter describe: “The main influence on all of the activity in electromagnetic theory during the later years of the nineteenth century came from Maxwell’s famous treatise (Maxwell 1873). Poynting was a member of the group of young physicists led by Heaviside, Fitzgerald, Lodge and Hertz who developed Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory in the years following his death in 1879. They transformed his 1873 presentation into the formalism recognizable today as Maxwell’s equations.” (Loudon and Baxter, 2012, p. 1826)
Interestingly, all five Maxwellians were not only interested in electromagnetic field theory but also applied it to a variety of practical problems. Poynting wrote an elaborate paper in which he describes the transfer of energy and momentum of electromagnetic waves titled “On the Transfer of Energy in the Electromagnetic Field” (Poynting, 1884, p. 343), and connected them to a series of interesting observations in electromagnetism. Among the seven applications Poynting discussed in his paper, the last one was on the theory of electromagnetic waves, and it is there that he computed the maximum value of the velocity of light. More on this in a future blog.
References:
Loudon, R., and C. Baxter. ‘Contributions of John Henry Poynting to the Understanding of Radiation Pressure’. Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 468, no. 2143 (2012): 1825–38. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2011.0573.
Poynting, J. H. ‘XV. On the Transfer of Energy in the Electromagnetic Field’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, no. 175 (December 1884): 343–61. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstl.1884.0016.
An interesting paper on arxiv today, which charts the “disciplinary evolution of 130 years of physics”
Nguyen, Khoa, Pragyan Pandey, Sophie Li, and Eric Y. Ma. ‘A Unified Subject Map for 130 Years of Physics’. arXiv:2606.14043. Preprint, arXiv, 12 June 2026. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2606.14043.
Ashna is an associate professor of physics at IISER, Pune, with research interests in experimental low-temperature physics that include magnetic oxides, carbon nanotubes, and spintronics.
In this episode, we explored her explorations in condensed matter and nanophysics. Also, we converse about Prof. R. Srinivasan, a remarkable experimental physicist who pioneered cryogenics and teaches it to college students and researchers across India.
Explore her work here:
A lab is a place where questions are asked, experiments are conducted, and theories are tested…& sometimes.. in this pursuit, the world is changed.
A case in point is the connection between CERN and the origins of www :
https://home.cern/science/computing/the-birth-of-the-web
Reference :
Loudon, R., and C. Baxter. ‘Contributions of John Henry Poynting to the Understanding of Radiation Pressure’. Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 468, no. 2143 (2012): 1825–38. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2011.0573.
Prasad Subramanian is a Professor at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune whose research spans plasma astrophysics, solar physics, and space weather. His work focuses on solar coronal mass ejections, black hole accretion, and astrophysical jets, combining theoretical approaches with observational data. He has contributed significantly to understanding turbulence, magnetic fields, and energetic processes in cosmic plasmas. He is also actively involved in science communication and interdisciplinary academic initiatives.
In this conversation, we discuss general aspects of astrophysics and the research topics he is interested in.
References with links:
‘Prasad Subramanian’. Accessed 21 May 2026. https://sites.iiserpune.ac.in/~p.subramanian/.
‘Prasad Subramanian – IISER Pune’. Accessed 21 May 2026. https://www.iiserpune.ac.in/research/department/physics/people/faculty/regular-faculty/prasad-subramanian/343.
‘Prasad Subramanian – Google Scholar’. Accessed 21 May 2026. https://scholar.google.co.in/citations?user=EHu_h-kAAAAJ&hl=en.
‘Nptel.Ac.in/Courses/115106124’. Accessed 21 May 2026. https://nptel.ac.in/courses/115106124.
Sometimes, referee reports can be frustrating, especially if your paper gets rejected and criticized without justification. This is not a new thing in scientific discourse, and even accomplished researchers like S. Chandrasekhar had to face such rejections. As Chandra notes in the winter of 1956:
“The frustration of these months was due also to the fact that the Royal Society rejected my second paper on turbulence with a most discourteous referee’s report. I withdrew the paper, but continued the correspondence with the referee. The referee withdrew some of his more blatant remarks; but the whole incident was an unhappy interlude. I went specially to Washington to talk to von Neumann; and corresponded also with Heisenberg.” (Chandrasekhar, 2010, p. 38)
When a paper gets rejected, what is important is to seek feedback from people who are knowledgeable and courteous. Chandra had friends such as von Neumann and Heisenberg to seek input. One cannot get better than this.
Source: Chandrasekhar, S. 2010. A Scientific Autobiography: S. Chandrasekhar: With Selected Correspondence. (posthumously published)
My latest research grant from ANRF is on “Opto-Thermal Binding of Plasmonic Matter”. This is a topic that is at the interface of optical momentum, thermodynamics, statistical physics, and advanced optical microscopy in the real and momentum spaces.
Optical momentum and its measurement have a rich history in understanding electromagnetic waves and their interaction with matter. Over the past century, multiple applications have emerged that harness the transfer of momentum from light to matter. Interestingly, the light that is scattered off this interaction also carries relevant information not only about the interaction but also about certain parameters of light and the participating matter.
These lectures are my attempt to give an overview of the field. My main target audience is my PhD group members and senior undergraduates who are working with me. But these lectures can be followed by anyone who is seriously interested in physics. The discussion involves theoretical optical physics (including elements of statistical and quantum optics), experimental techniques (including advanced microscopy methods) and a few computational techniques connected to the interaction. The goal of the lectures is to reveal the interesting questions in research papers, review articles, monographs and conference papers related to the field and their possible application in industries, including biophotonics and astro and space-photonics. From time to time, I will also discuss our research results from the project.
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