2007 Handbooks

The theory of electromagnetism, one of the most successful and most widely applied theories of modern physics, describes the properties and behaviour of electric and magnetic fields and their interaction with charged matter. This theory underlies all of modern optics, telecommunication and electrical engineering, and has played an important role in furthering our understanding of the fundamental forces of nature.

In this unit, the basic laws of electromagnetism are introduced, and their important consequences and applications in electrostatics, magnetostatics and electrodynamics are studied. It is also shown how these laws can be re-expressed in terms of the more powerful mathematical language of vector calculus, which leads to the development of Maxwell's equations. These equations give a fully unified description of electromagnetism in both static and dynamic situations. The overwhelming success of these equations in describing electromagnetic phenomena, is illustrated by studying electric and magnetic fields in matter, and electromagnetic waves.