在这篇文章内，矢量与标量分别用粗体与斜体显示。例如，位置矢量通常用表示；而其大小则用来表示。

在电磁学里，马克士威应力张量(Maxwell stress tensor)是描述电磁场带有之应力的二阶张量。马克士威应力张量可以表现出电场力、磁场力和机械动量之间的相互作用。对于简单的状况，例如一个点电荷自由地移动于均匀磁场，应用劳仑兹力定律，就可以很容易地计算出点电荷所感受的作用力。但是，当遇到稍微复杂一点的状况时，这很普通的进程会变得非常困难，方程序洋洋洒洒地一行又一行的延续。因此，物理学家通常会聚集很多项目于马克士威应力张量内，然后使用张量数学来解析问题。

The Maxwell stress tensor (named after James Clerk Maxwell) is a second rank tensor used in classical electromagnetism to represent the interaction between electromagnetic forces and mechanical momentum. In simple situations, such as a point charge moving freely in a homogeneous magnetic field, it is easy to calculate the forces on the charge from the Lorentz force law. When the situation becomes more complicated, this ordinary procedure can become impossibly difficult, with equations spanning multiple lines. It is therefore convenient to collect many of these terms in the Maxwell stress tensor, and to use tensor arithmetic to find the answer to the problem at hand.