A modern approach to classical electromagnetism Electromagnetism is one of the pillars of modern physics. Robert Wald provides graduate students with a clear, concise, and mathematically precise introduction to the subject, covering all the core topics while bringing the teaching of electromagnetism up to date with our modern understanding of the subject. Electromagnetism is usually taught in a quasi-historical fashion, starting from concepts formulated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but this tends to promote outdated ways of thinking about the theory. Wald begins with Maxwell’s equations—the foundation of electromagnetism—together with the formulas for the energy density, momentum density, and stress tensor of the electromagnetic field. He then proceeds through all the major topics in classical electromagnetism, such as electrostatics, dielectrics, magnetostatics, electrodynamics and radiation, diffraction, and special relativity. The last two chapters discuss electromagnetism as a gauge theory and the notion of a point charge—topics not normally treated in electromagnetism texts. Completely rethinks how to teach electromagnetism to first-year graduate students Presents electromagnetism from a modern, mathematically precise perspective, formulating key conceptual ideas and results clearly and concisely Written by a world-class physicist and proven in the classroom Covers all the subjects found in standard electromagnetism textbooks as well as additional topics such as the derivation of the initial value formulation for Maxwell’s equations Also ideal as a supplementary text or for self-study

This book contains 157 problems in classical electromagnetism, most of them new and original compared to those found in other textbooks. Each problem is presented with a title in order to highlight its inspiration in different areas of physics or technology, so that the book is also a survey of historical discoveries and applications of classical electromagnetism. The solutions are complete and include detailed discussions, which take into account typical questions and mistakes by the students. Without unnecessary mathematical complexity, the problems and related discussions introduce the student to advanced concepts such as unipolar and homopolar motors, magnetic monopoles, radiation pressure, angular momentum of light, bulk and surface plasmons, radiation friction, as well as to tricky concepts and ostensible ambiguities or paradoxes related to the classical theory of the electromagnetic field. With this approach the book is both a teaching tool for undergraduates in physics, mathematics and electric engineering, and a reference for students wishing to work in optics, material science, electronics, plasma physics.

This text advances from the basic laws of electricity and magnetism to classical electromagnetism in a quantum world. The treatment focuses on core concepts and related aspects of math and physics. 2016 edition.

This book provides a thorough description of classical electromagnetic radiation, starting from Maxwell's equations, and moving on to show how fundamental concepts are applied in a wide variety of examples from areas such as classical optics, antenna analysis, and electromagnetic scattering. Throughout, the author interweaves theoretical and experimental results to help give insight into the physical and historical foundations of the subject. A key feature of the book is that pulsed and time-harmonic signals are presented on an equal footing. Mathematical and physical explanations are enhanced by a wealth of illustrations (over 300), and the book includes more than 140 problems. It can be used as a textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in electrical engineering and physics, and will also be of interest to scientists and engineers working in applied electromagnetics. A solutions manual is available on request for lecturers adopting the text.

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.

Companion to Classical Electromagnetism: Second Edition, which features only basic answers. This book contains some problems from the companion volume plus many new ones, all with complete, worked-out solutions. 2018 edition.

This excellent text covers a year's course. Topics include vectors D and H inside matter, conservation laws for energy, momentum, invariance, form invariance, covariance in special relativity, and more.

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.

Gauge theories have provided our most successful representations of the fundamental forces of nature. How, though, do such representations work? Interpretations of gauge theory aim to answer this question. Through understanding how a gauge theory's representations work, we are able to say what kind of world our gauge theories reveal to us. A gauge theory's representations are mathematical structures. These may be transformed among themselves while certain features remain the same. Do the representations related by such a gauge transformation merely offer alternative ways of representing the very same situation? If so, then gauge symmetry is a purely formal property since it reflects no corresponding symmetry in nature. Gauging What's Real describes the representations provided by gauge theories in both classical and quantum physics. Richard Healey defends the thesis that gauge transformations are purely formal symmetries of almost all the classes of representations provided by each of our theories of fundamental forces. He argues that evidence for classical gauge theories of forces (other than gravity) gives us reason to believe that loops rather than points are the locations of fundamental properties. In addition to exploring the prospects of extending this conclusion to the quantum gauge theories of the Standard Model of elementary particle physics, Healey assesses the difficulties faced by attempts to base such ontological conclusions on the success of these theories.

This book seeks to work out which commitments are minimally sufficient to obtain an ontology of the natural world that matches all of today’s well-established physical theories. We propose an ontology of the natural world that is defined only by two axioms: (1) There are distance relations that individuate simple objects, namely matter points. (2) The matter points are permanent, with the distances between them changing. Everything else comes in as a means to represent the change in the distance relations in a manner that is both as simple and as informative as possible. The book works this minimalist ontology out in philosophical as well as mathematical terms and shows how one can understand classical mechanics, quantum field theory and relativistic physics on the basis of this ontology. Along the way, we seek to achieve four subsidiary aims: (a) to make a case for a holistic individuation of the basic objects (ontic structural realism); (b) to work out a new version of Humeanism, dubbed Super-Humeanism, that does without natural properties; (c) to set out an ontology of quantum physics that is an alternative to quantum state realism and that avoids any ontological dualism of particles and fields; (d) to vindicate a relationalist ontology based on point objects also in the domain of relativistic physics.