Physics

Role within programme and connections to other courses. This second course on the formalism of electricity and magnetism extends the material from Electromagnetism I, and adds mathematical rigor and sophistication to our toolbox of techniques for electromagnetic problems. Heavier use of the ideas from Methods of Theoretical Physics is made, including Fourier methods and spherical harmonics. At the culmination of this course, we will have been exposed to all of the core ideas in E/M theory except for relativity. The latter and applications will follow in Electromagnetism III. Content. Fields in materials (D and H), polarization and magnetization vectors, polarizability and susceptibility tensors, types of magnetization, gauge theory, and its uses in solution of electromagnetic problems, conservation laws in electromagnetic theory, Poynting's theorem, the Maxwell stress-energy tensor, the Lagrangian for a charged particle in an electromagnetic field, radiation from accelerated charges, retardation effects, generation and propagation of E/M waves, the breakdown of classical electromagnetic theory.