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This is the end of a controversy a century old and on the propagation of light in the dielectric. A group of Taiwanese researchers has vindicated the theoretical physicist Max Abraham against the great mathematician Hermann Minkowski.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, electrodynamics, including media equipment and body movement, was one of the hottest topics in physics. This boom has resulted in the revolutions of quantum theory and relativity. One of the leaders of the latter was the great mathematician Hermann Minkowski.

Hilbert friend from university, he was also the math teacher of Albert Einstein at ETH Zurich. As Hilbert, its concerns and work extended to all branches of mathematics, ie both the arithmetic that the mathematical physics. It is to him that we owe the introduction of the concept of geometry of space-time and its calculation tensorial partner. It followed a simple and powerful electrodynamics, naturally showing the concept of space-time behind. Above all, without it, Albert Einstein would never have been able to develop his masterpiece, the theory of general relativity.

It was already known, since the work of Poynting, that could carry the light of momentum in a vacuum. But what would happen when the body encounters a dielectric?

Good news for the fusion?

For the theoretical physicist Max Abraham, light could not exercising pressure when it fell on a dielectric, for example, from air to water. But Minkowski, the effect should be reversed, producing an attractive force.

In the 1970s, an experiment sufficiently sensitive between the two theories. A beam of light passing through the air and falling on the water actually caused bulging of the surface. The cause appeared heard. Similarly Abraham did not understand the theory of relativity and was always an opponent, it was wrong again and Minkowski triumphed once again ...

Unfortunately, the same year, only to soon realize that a failed optical effect in the analysis of the experience made it inconclusive. The debate was reignited, and remained until today.

A group of researchers at the University Sun Yat-Sen has indeed taken the problem by considering an experiment in which the light is also spreading in the air, falls on a filament in silica. The experience now seems convincing according to experts ... and it gives reason to Abraham. It is a force of pressure that has been highlighted.

It is not only the resolution of an old puzzle in theoretical physics. Indeed, it could open a new path for the realization of inertial fusion. One can imagine a ball in a transparent dielectric coating a mixture of deuterium and tritium, which compress sufficiently under the influence of laser beam so that the fusion reactions are triggered.