A student is studying a book placed near the edge of a circular table of radius R. A point source of light is suspended directly above the center of the table. What should be the height of the source above the table so as to produce maximum illuminance at the position of the book?
Let the height of the source be h and the luminous intensity in the normal direction be .
So, illuminance on the book E is given by,
From the figure we get
On substituting the value of we get
But
For maximum illuminance,
So, height .