Class meets MWF 10:30-11:20 AM (+M 11:30-12:20 AM) in Wean Hall 7316
Professor Mike Widom, Office 6424 Wean Hall
e-mail widom@andrew.cmu.edu, Phone: 268-7645
Office Hours: Any time I'm not busy
The two-semester course sequence, 33-338/339, covers electricity and magnetism at an advanced undergraduate level. E&M I (33-338) focuses on electro- and magneto-statics. The follow-on course, E&M II (33-339) addresses electro- and magneto-dynamics and their links with radiation and special relativity. Students should have prior knowledge of electricity and magnetism at the level of our calculus-based introductory Physics courses 33-107 or 33-112. Although we cover similar material, we do so at a much higher mathematical level, making extensive use of 3-D vector calculus and partial differential equations. For this reason students should have math courses at the level of 21-259/260 and mathematical physics 33-231/232.
A course web site at http://euler.phys.cmu.edu/widom/teaching/33-339 contains this syllabus plus links to day-by-day lecture coverage and weekly homework assignments.
Books: Five books are on reserve in the E&S library.
1. Introduction to Electrodynamics by D.J. Griffiths (537.6, G85I)
2. Electromagnetic Fields and Waves by P. Lorrain, D.R. Corson
and F. Lorrain (537.12, C82I2)
3. Electricity and Magnetism by E.M. Purcell (530, B512A2)
4. The Feynman Lectures in Physics by R.P. Feynman, R.B. Leighton
and M. Sands, volume II (530, F43F)
5. Classical Electrodynamics by J.D. Jackson (537.6, J13C3)
The principal content of the course will be drawn from Griffiths, and we will mainly follow its notation and examples. The remaining books contain supplementary course material not found in the main text and alternate presentations of the main text material. The book by Lorrain, Corson and Lorrain is an alternate textbook at the same level. The book by Purcell is intended as a freshman-level introduction but is written with such elegance and sophistication that it can be appreciated at any level. The Feynman lecture series, also intended as an introduction, is highly eccentric, demanding and brilliant in its design. The final book, by Jackson, is the standard text for a graduate level course.
Grading: Letter grades will be based on weekly homework assignments and several exams. The first exam is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 17, to be held in class. Homework assignments are listed here. Grades will be maintained on the blackboard system.
Course Outline:
Note this outline is only approximate. Actual class coverage can be found here.
Week 1-3. Electrodynamics. Electromotive force, induction and Maxwell's Equations. Chapter 7
Week 4. Energy, momentum and angular momentum conservation laws. Maxwell stress tensor. Chapter 8.
Weeks 5-8. Electromagnetic waves in vacuum and matter. Absorption and dispersion. Waveguides. Chapter 9.
Weeks 9. Potentials and fields of moving charge distributions. Chapter 10.
Weeks 10-11. Radiation. Chapter 11.
Weeks 12-15. Electrodynamics and special relativity. Relativistic transformation of electromagnetic fields. Chapter 12.