Essentials of Electromagnetism

Market: Students in undergraduate courses in electromagnetism. This innovative textbook provides students with a modern view of the unity of electromagnetism by forsaking the traditional historically ordered development for a more logically ordered one. This approach involves the introduction of Maxwell's equations at the earliest opportunity to serve as the basis for everything that follows.

Partial Contents: 1. Introduction and basic facts. Action at a distance and field theory. Mathematical language of field theory illustrated by reference to hydrodynamics, electromagnetism, and gravitation. 2. Maxwell's field equations in vacuum and the Lorentz force. The physical content of the four field equations and their embodiment of the empirical laws of Coulomb, Gauss, Ampere, and Faraday. 3. The separation of E and B fields under static conditions. The conservative nature of electrostatic fields and the formal equivalence with Newtonian gravitational field equations. 4. Magnetostatic field equations. The Biot-Savart law as a general solution. Applications to straight wires, loops, and coils. Magnetic dipoles and equivalent magnetic shells. 5. Time dependent fields at high frequency and electromagnetic radiation. The absolute nature of the speed of light and the conflict with classical mechanics. 6. Material media. Conductors, dielectrics, and magnetic materials. The atomic nature of polarization and magnetization and their phenomenological description by spatially and temporally averaged fields.