Syllabus for Physics V1600 Timothy Boyer, Professor
Textbook
The textbook for our course is Jackson's Classical Electrodynamics. The current edition is the third edition, but any edition will be satisfactory. There are corrections, additions, and subtractions from edition to edition.
Overview: Selected sections in Jackson: i) Electromagnetic Waves in Media (J: 7.5, 8.1), ii) Wave guides and cavities (J: 8.1-8.5, 8.7-8.8, 8.11), iii) Radiating systems (J: 9.1-9.4, 9.6-9.10), iv) Spherical Multipole Fields (J: 9.6-9.10), v) Scattering (J: 16.7-16.8, 10.1), vi) Special relativity and electromagnetism (J: 11.1-11.7, 11.9-11.10), vii) Fields of point charges (J: 14.1-14.5), viii) Classical electron theory and the Darwin Lagrangian (J: 16.1-16.3, 12.6)
Office Hours Beginning at the Regular Class Time
At present, I plan to post Powerpoint slides with an audio commentary on Blackboard. These slides-with-commentary correspond to the material which I would normally cover in a lecture. Please read this material, and also read the textbook before the meeting of the regularly scheduled class time. Also, there will be a few problems assigned at each regularly scheduled class time, and these problems should be submitted to Blackboard before 7:00 AM on the day of the next regularly scheduled class meetng. Thus, the class will be mainly asynchronous. I am treating the regularly scheduled class time as an opportunity for questions corresponding to an office hour. Students are always welcome to attend, but students are not penalized if they do not attend these meetings.
Grading
The homework will count as 20% of the final grade. The homework is not an exam, and you may consult your friends or any other sources in order to solve the problems. However, please be sure that you understand the homework problems so that you could solve a similar problem on an exam. Your solutions should be in your own handwriting and should be uploaded to Blackboard as a pdf file (preferred) or as a jpg file. Homework which is turned in on time will be graded. Homework which is turned in late will not be graded. However, the homework must be turned in, otherwise the student will be penalized by half a grade (an A+ become A-, an A becomes a B+, etc.) or else be given a grade of Incomplete for the course.
Exams will count for 80% of the grade. There will be two term-time exams and a final exam.
Last Updated: 09/28/2020 10:53