The self-force and radiation reaction

In view of the confusion in the literature, the nomenclature of “self-force” and “radiation reaction” is clarified. The difference in their physical meaning and their characteristic form permits one to obtain the total rate of radiation emission (both its momentum rate and its energy rate) from knowledge of the self-force. This can be done without knowledge of the asymptotic form of the radiation field. The electromagnetic case is the main topic, but the method is also applied to the emission of gravitational radiation in the linear approximation to general relativity.