The laws just derived for the state of radiation of a homogeneous isotropic medium when it is in thermodynamic equilibrium hold, so far as we have seen, only for parts of the medium which lie very far away from the surface, because for such parts only may the radiation be considered, by symmetry, as independent of position and direction. A simple consideration, however,
shows that the value of , which was already calculated and given by [eqn:(27)] (27), and which depends only on the temperature and the nature of the medium, gives the correct value of the intensity of radiation of the frequency considered for all directions up to points directly below the surface of the medium. For in the state of thermodynamic equilibrium every ray must have just the same intensity as the one travelling in an exactly opposite direction, since otherwise the radiation would cause a unidirectional transport of energy. Consider then any ray coming from the surface of the medium and directed inward; it must have the same intensity as the opposite ray, coming from the interior. A
further immediate consequence of this is that the total state of radiation of the medium is the same on the surface as in the interior.