There are several equivalent formulations of the BBL law, depending on the precise choice of measured quantities. All of them state that, provided that the physical state is held constant, the extinction process is linear in the intensity of radiation and amount of radiatively-active matter, a fact sometimes called the fundamental law of extinction. Many of them then connect the quantity of radiatively-active matter to a length traveled ℓ and a c or n. For concentrations expressed as moles per.