Veit Elser - Professor of Physics at Cornell University - Physics 2217: Electricity & Magnetism

Fall

2021

This relief of Michael Faraday can be found on a Cornell building. Do you know which one?

Announcements

(8/20) Read this important information to make sure you are enrolled in the correct course!
(8/20) The first homework assignment (posted below) is an exercise in multivariable calculus and can be done without having seen/read any lectures. If it's a struggle doing this assignment, consider switching to 2213.
(8/20) Office hours is your best opportunity to see the homework solutions. Fill out this poll for times that fit your schedule.
(8/25) This is the official course website. We are not using Canvas.
(8/29) Correction to previous announcement: The labs will use Canvas.
(8/29) Six of you have not yet responded to the office hours poll. Based on the responses received, there will be office hours Mondays 3:35-4:25. Only if that time doesn't work for you, or if you didn't fill out the first poll, be sure to fill out this poll for the second scheduled office hour.
(8/30) The Monday, 3:35-4:25 office hours will be in Clark 294A.
(8/31) Have you considered joining CURB? Application deadline is September 12.
(9/2) Under staff information you can now find all the scheduled office hours.
(9/4) In your homework solutions remember to explain/argue in words your steps. Sequences of mathematical substitutions, starting from a general formula and ending with the "solution", might suffice for 2213 but not in this course. For those of you who gave reasons in assignment 1 (which had little substitution/derivation for a purpose), keep it up in assgnment 2! The rest of you should read the posted solutions to see what is expected (though maybe not as verbose).
(9/5) No lecture on Monday! Spend the day reviewing the labor-energy theorem and electric potential energy.
(9/8) This Friday (9/10) is COVID Fashion Day! Wear your favorite pandemic-themed clothing or mask in lecture.
(9/9) Veit Elser's office hours will be held in PSB 426 unless the number of students attending is greater than three. In that case we move to Clark 294 (A or H). In any case, Clark 294 is available as a 2217 study hall.
(9/12) Veit Elser regrets he has to skip the second half of office hours on 9/13 because of the physics colloquium.
(9/15) Assignment 3 has been revised to include the naive approach for summing the terms in the electrostatic energy. The smarter approach, organized by "molecules", has all the same terms as the naive approach but grouped differently.
(9/17) AEP mentor-mentee program
(9/30) The first prelim is October 14. There are no practice exams. The exam will test your understanding and not so much your ability with math; any computations will be short. Here is a list to help you prepare.
(10/3) AEP Undergrad Journal Club
(10/17) Here are the solutions to problem 1 of the prelim. The other problems will be discussed in section, and all of you should take advantage of that. Prelims will be returned on 10/19 in section.
(10/18) Here are your prelim 1 scores.
(10/22) Ideally you should be starting the homework early, not on the Thursday before it's due. This is especially important for the current assignment.
(10/24) There is an analog of the mysterious frame rotation effect when combining non-collinear boosts (lecture 26) that just involves rotations and is easier to understand. Here are some notes if you're curious. This fine point of special relativity will not be covered in homeworks or exams. We needed the result to work out one case of the charge moving near a wire of current.
(11/1) Use this Zoom link for Veit Elser's office hours on 11/1, 3:30-4:30.
(11/8) Here is the Zoom invite for today's office hours, 3:30-4:30
(11/11) Veit Elser will resume regular in-person office hours starting 11/11.
(11/13) The Thursday afternoon office hours are meant for you to have an opportunity to check answers on the homework, or ask for guidance on a few of the trickier parts. They are not meant to get you started from a blank sheet, on an assignment due the following day. So far the teaching staff has shown remarkable restraint in calling out this behavior. Let's not test their patience going forward.
(12/3) The final homework assignment is due next Wednesday at the Physics Office. The two problems involve only short calculations and will help you review core concepts that will be covered in the final exam.
(12/4) Though the final exam mostly covers material since the second prelim, here are solutions to that prelim (used for grading, not intended for study).
(12/4) Namitha will have regular office hours on the Thursday before the final.
(12/6) Panoramic photo of "The road to Maxwell's equations" from the last lecture.
(12/17) Final exam solutions.
(12/17) Have a great break and be safe!

Course Information

prerequisites (not negotiable): freshman mechanics, special relativity (or enrolled in 2216), multi-variable calculus
two prelims and one final exam
one homework assignment almost every week
grade: homework 40%, final 20%, prelims 2 x 15%, labs 10%
recommended text: E & M by E. M. Purcell and D. J. Morin
lectures, homework assignments, and exams will be based on the lecture notes posted below

Syllabus

electricity
magnetism

Lectures

lectures follow the posted notes below
if possible, read lecture notes before the date of the lecture
there will be in-class demos not covered in the notes
to stay engaged during lecture you are strongly encouraged not to take lecture notes
lecture dates and number(!) are tentative and may have to be revised

8/27 Coulomb's law
8/30 electric energy, electric field
9/1 electric energy density, dipole field
9/3 electric flux, Gauss law for spherical surface
9/8 Gauss law for general surface
9/10 Lorentz invariance of charge, Gauss's law with symmetry
9/13 divergence theorem
9/15 differential Gauss's law, delta functions, electric potential
9/17 electric units, conductors, surface charge density
9/20a Poisson & Laplace equations, numerical solutions, sharp tips
9/20b Laplace solution uniqueness
9/22 free charge, drift velocity, current, Ohm's law
9/24 differential charge conservation, charges in metals
9/27 collision time, drift velocity model
9/29 power in circuits, lead-acid battery, internal resistance
10/1 Kirchhoff's laws
10/4 integral forms of electric energy
10/6 capacitors & capacitance
10/8 time-dependent circuit: capacitor charging
10/13 super-capacitor, moving frames
10/15a Lorentz transformation of electric field
10/15b Lorentz transformation of point charge electric field
10/18 sudden acceleration & radiation fields
10/20 Lorentz transformation of force, relativistic force law
10/22 origin of magnetic force, colinear relative motion
10/25 transverse relative motion (two kinds), general Lorentz force law
10/27 force between currents in wires
10/29 Ampere's law
11/1 differential Ampere's law, "magnetic Gauss" and "naive Faraday" laws
11/3 Ampere's law with symmetry, vector potential
11/5 Biot-Savart formula
11/8 Hall effect, magnetic torque
11/10 general Lorentz transformation law for fields
11/12 fixing Ampere's law (no sources)
11/15 fixing Faraday's law (no sources), transforming derivatives
11/17 Lorentz invariance of Maxwell's equations
11/19 restoring sources to the Maxwell equations
11/22 Lenz-law physics
11/29 inductors and inductance
12/1 LC circuit, Poynting vector
12/3 electromagnetic waves
12/6 summary

Mathematica computer demos

Laplace equation solution at a sharp tip

Homework (bring to lecture on indicated date)

Labs

schedule
All labs on Wednesdays, in Rockefeller B03
First lab is on 9/1
Lab Manual

Dates

Prelim 1: October 14, 7:30-9:00 pm, Rockefeller 230
Prelim 2: November 2, 7:30-9:00 pm, Rockefeller 230
Final: December 11, 2:00-4:30 pm, Baker Laboratory 335

Staff Information

lecturer: Veit Elser, email, office hours: M 3:35-4:25 Clark 294A, Th 3:35-4:25 Clark 294H
TA: Namitha Suresh, email, office hours: Th 2:00-3:00 & 5:15-6:15 Clark 294H
Lab TA: Rakin Baten, email

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Physics 2217: Electricity & Magnetism

Announcements

Course Information

Syllabus

Lectures

Mathematica computer demos

Homework (bring to lecture on indicated date)

Labs

Dates

Staff Information

Additional resources