Lectures On Electrodynamics

Advanced Electromagnetism: Foundations, Theory and Applications treats what is conventionally called electromagnetism or Maxwell's theory within the context of gauge theory or Yang-Mills theory. A major theme of this book is that fields are not stand-alone entities but are defined by their boundary conditions. The book has practical relevance to efficient antenna design, the understanding of forces and stresses in high energy pulses, ring laser gyros, high speed computer logic elements, efficient transfer of power, parametric conversion, and many other devices and systems. Conventional electromagnetism is shown to be an underdeveloped, rather than a completely developed, field of endeavor, with major challenges in development still to be met.

These lecture notes on electromagnetism have evolved from graduate and undergraduate EM theory courses given by the author at the University of Rochester, with the basics presented with clarity and his characteristic attention to detail. The thirteen chapters cover, in logical sequence, topics ranging from electrostatics, magnetostatics and Maxwell''s equations to plasmas and radiation. Boundary value problems are treated extensively, as are wave guides, electromagnetic interactions and fields. This second edition comprises many of the topics expanded with more details on the derivation of various equations, particularly in the second half of the book that focuses on rather advanced topics. This set of lecture notes, written in a simple and lucid style and in a manner that is complementary to other texts on electromagnetism, will be a valuable addition to the physics bookshelf.

Practically all of modern physics deals with fields—functions of space (or spacetime) that give the value of a certain quantity, such as the temperature, in terms of its location within a prescribed volume. Electrodynamics is a comprehensive study of the field produced by (and interacting with) charged particles, which in practice means almost all matter. Fulvio Melia's Electrodynamics offers a concise, compact, yet complete treatment of this important branch of physics. Unlike most of the standard texts, Electrodynamics neither assumes familiarity with basic concepts nor ends before reaching advanced theoretical principles. Instead this book takes a continuous approach, leading the reader from fundamental physical principles through to a relativistic Lagrangian formalism that overlaps with the field theoretic techniques used in other branches of advanced physics. Avoiding unnecessary technical details and calculations, Electrodynamics will serve both as a useful supplemental text for graduate and advanced undergraduate students and as a helpful overview for physicists who specialize in other fields.

These lecture notes cover classical electrodynamics at the level of advanced undergraduates or postgraduates. There is a strong emphasis on the general features of the electromagnetic field and, in particular, on the properties of electromagnetic radiation. It offers a comprehensive and detailed, as well as self-contained, account of material that can be covered in a one-semester course for students with a solid undergraduate knowledge of basic electricity and magnetism.

In the 1950s, the distinguished theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli delivered a landmark series of lectures at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. His comprehensive coverage of the fundamentals of classical and modern physics was painstakingly recorded not only by his students but also by a number of collaborators, whose carefully edited transcriptions resulted in a remarkable six-volume work. This volume, the first of the series, presents a brief survey of the historical development and then-current problems of electrodynamics, followed by sections on electrostatics and magnetostatics, steady-state currents, quasi-static fields, and rapidly varying fields. As does each book in the series, Volume 1 includes an index and a wealth of helpful figures, and can be read independently of the series by those who wish to focus on a particular topic. Originally published in 1973, the text remains entirely relevant thanks to Pauli's manner of presentation. As Victor F. Weisskopf notes in the Foreword to the series, Pauli's style is "commensurate to the greatness of its subject in its clarity and impact. Pauli's lectures show how physical ideas can be presented clearly and in good mathematical form, without being hidden in formalistic expertise." Alone or as part of the complete set, this volume represents a peerless resource invaluable to individuals, libraries, and other institutions.

Covering the theory of computation, information and communications, the physical aspects of computation, and the physical limits of computers, this text is based on the notes taken by one of its editors, Tony Hey, on a lecture course on computation given b