Physics 212 Electromagnetism I Autumn 2013
Physics 212
Class 21702
Instructor: Robert P. Johnson
Office: 323 Nat. Sci. II
Phone: 459-2125
Email: rjohnson@scipp.ucsc.edu
Office hours: MWF 1:00 to 2:00 pm
Lecture: M,W,F 11:00 to 12:10, ISB 231
The textbook for this course is “Electrodynamics” by J.D. Jackson, 3 rd
Edition. This edition is unusual, compared with the one that I used as a graduate student, in that SI units are used for the first two thirds and Gaussian units for the remainder, once special relativity is introduced. For this quarter (Electromagnetism I) we will not get into the
Gaussian half, so the equations will look the same as what you are probably used to from your undergraduate textbook. In fact, I recommend that you keep your undergraduate book nearby, e.g. Griffiths, to refer to and compare with Jackson’s treatment.
You will be expected to make use of a computer for completion of a few of the homework problems that involve numerical solutions or require plotting of solutions. I will provide examples and will go through some examples in class.
The course web page is http://scipp.ucsc.edu/~johnson/phys212 . You will find links there to homework assignments, material that I present in lecture, and other resources. I will post homework and exam solutions, as well as grades, only on eCommons
( https://ecommons.ucsc.edu/library/skin/santa_cruz/home.html
), since it is more secure.
There is a link to eCommons on the course web page.
My office hours are a good time to find me in my office and work with me on the lecture or homework material. But you are welcome to drop in at other times and ask questions, except right before lecture.
You may collaborate on the homework, but you should nevertheless work through each problem completely on your own. In any case, you must turn in your own work. Your work and your computer programs must not be duplicates of those of your classmates.
The final exam will be comprehensive. There will be no midterm exam.
I will grade the homework, as well as exams, so be forewarned that the presentation of your solution will count, not just the calculations and result. Please work out the problem first on scratch paper and then write out a clear presentation of your solution for us to grade. In general your solutions should include some English sentences, not just calculations. The simple idea is that I need to be able to follow your work in order to grade it. While I do want to see all of your calculations, I do not want to see your scratch work.
I also do not want you to use Mathematica, or any other symbolic algebra tool, as a crutch. I do not want to see Mathematica printout of computer-generated algebraic solutions in the homework that you turn in for grading. Your homework solutions also should not skip large amounts of algebra and then present a Mathematica result.
However, you are welcome and encouraged to check your work with such tools, or use them to guide you to a solution. For indefinite integrals you are welcome to refer to any

Physics 212 Electromagnetism I Autumn 2013 table of integrals, or you may use a program like Mathematica to do 1-D indefinite integrals. But in the latter case, I do insist that first you transform each integral into a form that could be looked up in a table of integrals.
The following syllabus is detailed but tentative. Since this is my first time to teach this course, I’m uncertain of the time breakdown needed for the various subjects. I will update the syllabus online throughout the quarter, when necessary. It is a lot of material to cover, but much of it should be review. I will try to go faster on parts that should be more familiar to you from your undergraduate courses, but the homework will include relatively elementary problems, to be sure that you don’t forget the basics.
Oct 21
Oct 23
Oct 25
Oct 28
Oct 30
Nov 1
Nov 4
Nov 6
Nov 8
Nov 11
Nov 13
Nov 15
Nov 18
Nov 20
Nov 22
Nov 25
Nov 27
Nov 29
Dec 2
Dec 4
Dec 6
Dec 9
Sept 27 Introduction, Coulomb’s law, Electric field, Gauss’ law, scalar potential
Sept 30
Oct 2
Oct 4
Poisson eqn., Green’s theorem, Boundaries
Energy and capacitance, numerical methods
Method of images for spheres
Oct 7
Oct 9
Oct 11
Oct 14
Oct 16
Oct 18
Green function methods for a conducting sphere
Separation of variables
Applications and numerical methods
Separation of variables in spherical coordinates
Spherical harmonics,
Separation of variables in cylindrical coordinates
Green function expansion
Multipole expansion
Electrostatics in media
Boundary value problems in media
Molecular polarizability and models, Energy
Biot-Savart law, Ampere’s law, vector potential
Magnetic moment, Force, Torque
Boundary value problems in magnetostatics
Examples in magnetostatics
Holiday
Induction and Faraday’s law, Energy, Inductance
Displacement current, Maxwell’s eqns, Gauges
Wave eqn and Green ftn, Retarded solutions
Poynting’s theorem, Energy, Momentum
Plane waves, Stokes parameters
Reflection and refraction
Dispersion
Holiday
Magnetohydrodynamic waves
Wave superposition, Group velocity, Spreading
Causality and Kramers-Kronig relations
Final Exam, 8:00-11:00 am
4.4
4.5

4.7
5.1

5.5
5.6

5.7
5.8

5.9
5.10

5.16
5.15

5.17
6.1

6.3
6.4

6.5
6.7

6.9
7.1

7.2
7.3

7.4
7.5

7.6
Intro &
1.1

1.5
1.7

1.10
1.11

1.13
2.1

2.5
2.6

2.7
2.9

2.10
2.11

2.12
3.1

3.4
3.5

3.6
3.7

3.9
3.9

3.11
4.1

4.2
4.3

4.4
7.7
7.8

7.9
7.10

7.11
#1 due
#2 due
#3 due
#4 due
#5 due