Analysis of the Abraham-Minkowski controversy by means of two simple examples

Using a very simple example, H. M. Lai [1] argued in favor of Abraham's proposal for defining electromagnetic field momentum density. Later, using another simple device, Johnson et al. [2] argued in favor of Minkowski's proposal. This indicates that the Abraham-Minkowski controversy remains open. Both models consider nonmagnetic media (mu = 1). In this work we analyze both models pointing out some weak points and extend the analysis to magnetic media (mu not equal 1). We show that in this case Minkowski's proposal is better than Abraham's. Our analysis throws some light on this very old controversy.