The intensity of sunlight under the clear sky is 836 W/m2. The speed of light is 2.99792 × 108 m/s. How much electromagnetic energy is contained per cubic meter near the Earth’s surface?

1 Answer
Gió
May 20, 2016

Here I am going to try but take it as a suggestion only...

Explanation:

According to your question you need a kind of energy density in #"Joules"/m^3#.
Observing the units of your data you have:
Power divided by area or #"Watts"/m^2="Joule"/(s*m^2)#
By dividing it by velocity (in #m/s#) you get:
#("Joule"/(s*m^2))/(m/s)="Joules"/m^3#
So it should be: #836/(2.99792xx10^8)=2.7886xx10^-6J/m^3#

Please let me know about this! :-)

Related questions
See all questions in Light and Fundamental Forces
Impact of this question
4269 views around the world
You can reuse this answer
Creative Commons License