The first in-class test will be on Thursday, February 29 and will relate to material in chapters 1 - 3.
The second in-class test will be on Thursday, April 4 and will relate to material in chapters 4 - 5.
The final exam will be as follows: half the questions will relate to chapters 6 - 7, the rest could relate to any chapter, or to combined material from several chapters.
No books or notes allowed on the in-class tests and final exam.
Homework assignments will be handed out every Thursday (except when there is an in-class test) and will be due by class time the following Tuesday. They are not pledged. A 10% per day penalty will be applied to any part of the homework that is handed in late without justification. No-penalty extensions can be requested for good reasons, including other pressing academic requirements.
APPROXIMATE SCHEDULE AND TOPICS
The relation of dates to topics given below is approximate, corrections will be applied as needed during the semester.
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Chapter 1
1/18 --- Coulomb's law, electric field, gaussian and MKS units
1/23 --- Electrostatic potential. Gauss's law. Fields of line and surface charges
1/25 --- Electrostatic energy. Green's identities. Uniqueness theorems.
2/1 --- Capacitance and capacitors. Examples
Chapter 2
2/6 --- The method of images. Examples
2/8 --- Fourier series and their use in electrostatics. Edges and corners
2/13 --- Complex variable methods for two-dimensional problems (not in Jackson).
Chapter 3
2/15 --- Legendre polynomials and spherical harmonics.
2/20 --- Bessel functions. Green function expansions.
2/22 --- The ring, the disk, the round hole and other examples.
Chapter 4
2/27 --- Multipole fields. Molecular polarizability.
2/29 --- In-class test 1
3/5 --- Fields in dielectric media. Boundary conditions
3/7 --- Boundary value problems with dielectrics.
3/12 --- Spring recess
3/14 --- Spring recess
Chapter 5
3/19 --- Ohm's law and boundary value problems with currents
3/21 --- Ampère's laws, the magnetic field and the vector potential
3/26 --- Current loops and magnetic moments. Magnetized media.
3/28 --- The magnetized sphere and other boundary value problems in magnetism
Chapter 6
4/2 --- Faraday's law. Magnetic energy. Inductance
4/4 --- In-class test 2
4/9 --- Maxwell's equations. Gauge freedom and gauge choice.
4/11 --- Maxwell's equations in matter. Boundary conditions.
4/16 --- Poynting's theorem. Electromagnetic energy and stresses
Chapter 7
4/18 --- Electromagnetic waves. Green's functions for the wave equation.
4/23 --- Plane waves. Polarization. Reflection and refraction.
4/25 --- Frequency-dependent response of dielectrics and conductors.
4/30 --- Dispersion. Kramers-Kronig relations.
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5/6 --- Final exam (9:00 am)