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kidia
March 3rd, 2006, 1:02 PM
Can anybody give me the physical meaning of the pointing vector S=EXE for time varying fields. What are its units?

Tom Mattson
March 4th, 2006, 11:40 AM
1.) It's the Poynting vector, named after the physicist John Henry Poynting.

2.) The Poynting vector is not \vec{E}\times\vec{E}. If it were then it would be the zero vector! Rather, the Poynting vector is \vec{S}=\frac{1}{\mu_0}\vec{E}\times\vec{B}.

3.) You should be able to work out the units yourself. You should find that it has the units of intensity.

More:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poynting_vector
http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/PoyntingVector.html