Instructor:
Elizabeth Gire Wngr 499.
I have an “open door” policy - anytime my office door is open, you are welcome to knock and ask if I have time to chat! If you need to meet with me privately, you may either drop by my office, send me an email to make an appointment, or come to my regular office hour and we can go up to my office.

Graduate TA/Grader:
Lupe MacIntosh (she/her)
Brett Pentecost (they/them)

Undergraduate LAs:
Natalie Rodgers (she/her)
Jake Bullard (he/him)
Nathan Hastings (he/him)

All office hours are in WNGR 304F

Monday:

• 11-noon (Natalie)

Tuesday:

• 10-11am (Lupe)
• 11am-noon (Jake)
• 3-4pm (Liz)
• 4-5pm (Nathan)

Wednesday:

Thursday:

• 2-3pm (Natalie)
• 3-4pm (Nathan)

Friday:

• 10:30-11:30am (Liz)
• 2-3pm (Lupe/Brett)
• 5-6pm (Jake)

Junior and Senior level courses for majors share textbooks. Copies are freely available in the SPS room and Weniger 304F. The recommended (NOT required) texts for this particular course are:

Griffiths (GEM), Introduction to Electrodynamics, 4th ed. Pearson, 2013, ISBN 13:978-0-321-85656-2
Taylor (T), Classical Mechanics, University Science Books , 2005. ISBN 978-1891389221

We will also be using assigned readings from two (free) online textbooks:

The Geometry of Static Fields
The Geometry of Mathematical Methods

We will not be following the Griffiths text closely, but it is well written and will provide you a good alternative description of much of the content of this course. It will also be used extensively in the E&M capstone next year. We will only be using a few small readings from the Taylor book, so don't feel you need to buy it if you don't already have it. The online texts are underdevelopment. If you would like a complete and published mathematical methods textbook, we recommend: Boas (Boas), Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences, 3rd ed., Wiley, 2005. ISBN 978-0-471-19826-0

We will be using the computer algebra system Mathematica in several of the upper-division physics courses. Students who wish to put a copy of Mathematica on their privately owned computer (helpful, but not required) should contact COSINe for current academic licensing information. During non-Covid, the physics majors' study room (Weniger 304F), with many machines running this software, are open at all times to enrolled students. See the physics department office for information about keys to Weniger 304F.

• 1) Physics Content: Calculate electrostatic and magnetostatic fields from both discrete and continuous distributions of sources.
• 2) Physics Content: Use Gauss's and Ampere's Laws in integral form to find electrostatic and magnetostatic fields in highly symmetric situations.
• 3) Physics Content: Use Maxwell's equations in differential form to find sources from static fields.
• 4) Mathematics Content: Use the “chop, multiply, add” method and \(d\vec{r}\) to set up and analyze the structure of line, surface, flux, and volume integrals in rectangular, cylindrical, and spherical coordinates.
• 5) Mathematics Content: Predict the gradient, divergence, and curl of fields from graphical representations.
• 6) Mathematics Content: Use simple geometric arguments to prove the big vector calculus theorems (Divergence and Stokes') and then use them to transform the integral form of Maxwell's equations to the differential form.
• 7) Mathematics Content: Use power and Laurent series approximations to approximate fields in regions very far or very near the sources.
• 8) Sensemaking: Coordinate verbal, graphical, geometric, diagrammatic, and algebraic representations of sources and fields.
• 9) Sensemaking: Use physical situations with simple geometries as idealized building blocks for more complicated physical situations.
• 10) Sensemaking: Use the symmetries of physical situations to check the validity of symbolic and graphical representations of those situations.
• 11) Grad: Make clear explanations of electrostatic concepts to physics learners

• 1) Finding electrostatic and magnetostatic fields from discrete and continuous sources using the superposition principle.
• 2) Extending the techniques of vector calculus from rectangular to cylindrical and spherical coordinates.
• 3) Visualizing scalar- and vector-valued functions and their derivatives in three dimensions.
• 4) Extending the integral versions of Maxwell's equations (learned in introductory physics) to the local, differential versions.
• 5) Calculating the work done on and by an electrostatic field.
• 6) Grad: Communicate graduate level understanding of electromagnetism to both peers and instructors.

Your course grade will be determined by:

• Required Homework/Other Assignments: (50%)
• Classroom Participation & Attendance (10%) Class participation is crucial for the activity-based teaching style used in the Paradigms classes. I expect that you will attend class ready to do physics. I also expect that your behavior will contribute to a safe, collaborative learning space for everyone. Please see the department guidelines for further information.
• Final Exam (40%) The final exam will have both an individual component and a group component. Details will be announced in class.

Notes:

• Homework: The best way to learn the material of this course is to attend class and do the homework. Homework will be posted on the online course schedule. Solutions will be posted online after the due date.
• Practice Problems: I sometimes provide Practice Problems. These are meant to be review or relatively simple examples for you to check whether you understand the material. They will not be graded. Solutions will be posted at the same time as the practice problems. I recommend that you at least read each practice problem. If you don't know how to do it, ask for help.
• Late Homework: We really want you to do the homework, so we will absolutely accept late homework. Late homework will receive a penalty:
  • within 48 hours of the due time will receive a 20% penalty.
  • after 48 hours of the due time will receive a 50%penalty and no feedback will be given. Email your late homework to the GTA's and the instructor.
  When you know that an assignment will be late, let me and the graders know as soon as possible and turn in what you've completed at the due/date time. This helps me with grading logistics. Any portion of the work that is turned in on time will not be subject to the late penalty. Please consult the instructor for extenuating circumstances.

Grading Scale: Course letter grades will be assigned using the following lower bounds for each grade bin. These lower bounds may be adjusted down as needed.
A = 93%, A- = 90%, B+ = 87%, B = 83%, B- =80%, C+ = 77%, C = 73%, C- = 70%, D = 60 F = 0%

Additional Guidance

• Science is inherently a social and collaborative effort. You are strongly encouraged to work on assignments, including coding and plotting, collaboratively. So that we can best support your learning, you are required to turn in assignments that you have written up independently.
• Appropriate resources on assignments include: working with each other, graduates of the course, the course TAs and LAs, or the course instructor; textbooks; other online materials, etc. Do NOT use homework solutions from previous years and do NOT share your completed homework solutions with other students (in other words, collaborate through discussion, not copying).
• Document your resources appropriately. If you find a homework problem worked out somewhere (other than homework solutions from a previous year), you may certainly use that resource, just make sure you reference it properly. If someone else helps you solve a problem, reference that too. An appropriate reference might be "Benny Beaver (private communication, 1/15/22)" or "I worked with Benny Beaver on this problem". You do not need to reference any member of the teaching team. Representing someone else's work as your own without reference\(-\) also known as plagiarism \(-\) is unethical, but collaboration and exchange of ideas is healthy. You can avoid having collaborative efforts take on the look of plagiarism by acknowledging sources as described above and by writing up your work independently.
• The problems in this course will likely take longer than problems you've seen in previous courses. If you find that you have worked on a problem for 20 minutes without making forward progress, it's time to pause, take a break, sleep, and seek help from classmates or the instructional team.