On the Gravitational Effects of Light

Abstract

[Translation of and Commentary on L\'eon Rosenfeld's "Ueber die Gravitationwirkungen des Lichtes", Zeitschrift fur Physik 65: 589-599 (1930). Originally published in German. Submitted for publication on September 26, 1930. See [1] in the Comments with References section before reading this English translation.] The gravitational field generated by an electromagnetic field is calculated using of laws of quantum mechanics and it is shown that the resulting gravitational energy turns out to be infinitely large, raising a new difficulty for the Heisenberg-Pauli quantum theory of wave fields. In addition, the transition processes in first-order approximation involving light and gravitational quanta are briefly discussed.