Advanced classical electromagnetism
- Princeton : Princeton University Press, 2022
- xii, 229 p. ; ill., 27 cm.
Includes index.
This is a concise, beginning graduate-level textbook on classical electromagnetism, the branch of physics that describes the interaction of electric currents or fields and magnetic fields. Electromagnetism (also called electrodynamics) is one of the pillars of modern physics and, as such, of the modern physics curriculum, with courses on electromagnetism required at the undergraduate and graduate levels. These courses traditionally proceed in a quasi-historical fashion, starting from equations and laws that were first formulated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and still form the foundations of our understanding of electromagnetism. However, as Robert Wald argues, teaching in this way can be imprecise and tends to promote outdated ways of thinking about the subject.