Electrodynamics (414-1-1)

Instructors

Venkat Chandrasekhar
847/491-3444
Technological Institute Building (2145 Sheridan Road), Room F-125, Evanston

Meeting Info

Technological Institute M164: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

This is the first quarter of a two quarter sequence on Classical Electrodynamics at the graduate level. The topics to be covered in the first quarter are electrostatics, magnetostatics, and if time permits, an introduction to time-dependent fields that will lead us directly into the material for the second quarter of the course.

Registration Requirements

Prerequisites
As this is a graduate level course, it is assumed that you have already taken an advanced undergraduate Electricity and Magnetism course at the level of Griffiths or its equivalent, and have an appropriate mathematics background, including differential and integral vector calculus, linear algebra, ordinary and some partial differential equations, and some complex analysis, as would be covered in a typical mathematical physics course at the level of Arfken. It would not hurt to review some of these topics early on in the course.

Learning Objectives

Understanding Classical Electrodynamics as a relativistic classical field theory. Consequences and applications, as well as related analytic and numerical techniques.

Teaching Method

The course is based entirely on lectures in the class, and as such, there is no assigned text for the course. If you are more comfortable with having a text, I would recommend obtaining a copy of Jackson's classic text on Electrodynamics. The lectures will follow his treatment in parts, but also draw upon Smythe, Panofksy-Phillips, Landau-Lifshitz and other texts.

Evaluation Method

Evaluation is based on a weekly homework set, an in-class midterm and an in-class final exam.

Class Materials (Required)

None.