Unit 7

Unit 7

Unit 1 • Unit 2 • Unit 3 •Unit 4 • Unit 5 • Unit 6 • Unit 7 • Unit 8

Maxwell's Equations and Special Relativity

December 1 to December 4

You should review the notes and videos below by the end of the semester.
There will be no Problem Sets for this unit.

In this, our last unit, we discuss how to reformulate electromagnetism and Maxwell's equations in a way that is compatible with the theory of special relativity. We will see how fields transform under a Lorentz transformation, and find the relativistic version of Larmor's formula.

Below is a list of links to the course notes for each topic in this unit, followed by links to recorded video lectures. Following these topic-links are links to the unit Discussion Boards and the unit Problem Set.

Notes and Video Lectures

Notes 7-1 - Review of special relativity and the Lorentz transformation, 4-vectors and proper time
- Video 7-1.1 - Special Relativity and the Lorentz transformation [35 min]
- Video 7-1.2 - 4-vectors and the proper time [58 min]
Notes 7-2 - Maxwell's equations in relativistic form
- Video 7-2.1 - Maxwell's equations in potential form [25 min]
- Video 7-2.2 - Field strength tensor and Maxwell's inhomogeneous equations [26 min]
- Video 7-2.3 - Maxwell's homogeneous equations [27 min]
- Video 7-2.4 - Lorentz transformation of electric and magnetic fields [9 min]
Notes 7-3 - Relativistic kinematics, relativistic momentum and energy, the Lorentz force
- Video 7-3.1 - Relativistic kinematics [24 min]
- Video 7-3.2 - Relativistic form for the Lorentz force [15 min]
Notes 7-4 - The Relativistic Larmor's formula
- Video 7-4.1 - The relativisitic Larmor's formula [28 min]
Notes 7-5-supp - Supplemental: The relativistic form for the Maxwell stress tensor, energy and momentum conservation

Discussion Board for Unit 7
Use this link to post questions regarding the material in Unit 7. Questions and replies will be viewable by the entire class. To post a question, click on the Create Thread link on the top of the Disussion Board page. To get an email message whenever someone makes a post, click on the Subscribe link on the top of the Discussion Board page.