Classical Electrodynamics: Syllabus

Lectures: Wednesday & Friday, 2.00pm - 3.15pm. Location: George R. Brown W211 + Zoom (dual delivery)
 
Office Hours: Monday, 4.00pm - 5.30pm (Zoom) & Friday, 12.00pm - 1.30pm (HBH 310).
 
Required Text: The Classical Theory of Fields, by Lev D. Landau and Evgeny M. Lifshitz (Fourth Revised English Edition, Pergamon Press or Butterworth & Heinemann). LL below). This is the second volume of the venerated Course of Theoretical Physics that should be on every practicing physicist's bookshelf. The course will cover the material in Chapters 1-9 on electrodynamics, excluding Chapter 7 on light ray propagation and diffraction, and leaving the portions on general relativity to another pedagogic adventure, for example PHYS 561.
 
Teaching Assistants: JiaZhao Lin (email: JiaZhao.Lin at rice.edu) and Yiming Wang (email: yw99 at rice.edu).
  



                                      LL SECTION   APPROX NUMBER
         TOPIC                          NUMBER      OF LECTURES         DATES


  Preliminaries                                                          1/11
  Special Relativity Essentials          1-3             1.5          1/13, 1/18
  Lorentz Transformations               4,5,7            1.5          1/18, 1/20
  Four Vectors and Tensors              6+supp            1              1/25
  Relativistic Dynamics                 8,9,14            1              1/27
  Relativistic Collisions & Decay       10-13             1              2/1
  Charges in Electromagnetic Fields     16-19            1.5           2/3, 2/8


                        Mid-Term Recess, February 9 - 10



  Charge Motions in E/M Fields          20-22            1.5          2/8, 2/15
  Electromagnetic Field Tensor          23-25             1              2/17
  Electromagnetic Field Equations       26-31             2           2/22, 2/24
  Tensor Formulation of the Field       32-35             3         3/1, 3/3, 3/8


                        Take-Home Mid-Term Exam, March 3/4



  Static Electric Fields              36-42,51            2           3/10, 3/22


                        Spring Break, March 13 - 17



  Static Magnetic Fields                43-45             1              3/24
  Electromagnetic Waves                 46-50             2           3/29, 3/31
  Fields of Moving Charges              62-64             1              4/5
  Radiation of Electromagnetic Waves  66-72, 78-80        3         4/7, 4/12, 4/19
  Radiating Relativistic Charges        73-77             1             4/21


                      Take-home Final Exam, due May 2 at 5pm

Lecture/date allocations for the material are approximate, and may be modified as the semester progresses, for example should serendipitous travel to a meeting arise for Dr. Baring.

Special Needs? Any student with a documented disability needing academic adjustments or accommodations is requested to speak with Dr. Baring during the first two weeks of class. All discussions will remain confidential. Students with disabilities should also contact Disability Support Services in the Ley Student Center.
 
Other texts:

Image Credit: the "Ring of Fire," an image of a solar prominence taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's Atmospheric Imaging Assembly during the March 30, 2010 eruption. The twisting of the magnetic field morphology is obvious. [image from NASA's Image of the Day Gallery]