Course Material/Syllabus

This course is designed to give you a basic background in the study of the phenomena of electricity and magnetism as well as a flavor of some basic applications. You will be responsible for material in the assigned readings and the lectures.

A list of topics and (roughly) what lectures they should be covered in follows below. I will try to protect two full lectures for review at the end, but can't promise this.

• Electrostatics (Lectures 1 - 8)
  • Electric charge, Coulomb force, Electric Fields, Conductors
  • Electric dipoles
  • Gauss' Law (Integral form)
  • Electrostatic Potential and Energy
  • Capacitors and Dielectrics
• Electrodynamics (Lectures 9 - 11)
  • Currents, Resistance, Ohm's Law
  • Resistive Circuits
  • RC Circuit Phenomena
• Magnetic Fields (Lectures 12 - 15)
  • Magnetic Fields and Forces, Lorenz Force
  • Currents and Magnetic Dipoles
  • Ampère's Law
  • Biot-Savart Law
  • Magnetic Materials, Dia-, Para- and Ferro-magnetism
• Magnetic Induction (Lectures 16 - 18)
  • Induced Electric Fields, Faraday's Law
  • Mutual and Self Inductance, Inductors, Transformers
  • LR and LC Circuits
• Simple AC Circuits (Lectures 19 - 21)
  • AC voltage and current
  • Impedance and Phases
  • Simple AC Circuits and Applications
• Unification of Electricity and Magnetism (Lectures 22 - 24)
  • The Displacement Current
  • Maxwell's Equations (Integral form)
  • Electromagnetic Waves
  • Light: Speed, Energy, Momentum
  • Wave and Particle Properties of Light
• Review (Lectures 25 - 26)

We will not explicitly cover material assumed as prerequisite for this class, including vectors and integral and differential calculus (material through (Math 143 or Math 162 or equivalent), and mechanics (Physics 121 or equivalent), although we will frequently make reference to and use of this material. If you are unsure if your background meets the course prerequisites, please see me.