Electricity and Magnetism: Maxwell’s Equations
In this final part of 8.02, we will cover Faraday’s Law, Circuits with Inductors, Maxwell’s equations, and electromagnetic radiation. This introductory Electromagnetism physics course will require the use of calculus
Course Information
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About this Course
Electricity and Magnetism dominate much of the world around us – from the most fundamental processes in nature to cutting edge electronic devices. Electric and Magnet fields arise from charged particles. Charged particles also feel forces in electric and magnetic fields. Maxwell’s equations, in addition to describing this behavior, also describe electromagnetic radiation.
In this course, we finish up this introduction to Electricity and Magnetism. We begin by thinking about magnetic fields that change in time, working through Faraday’s Law and Inductors in Circuits. With the addition of Displacement Current, we complete Maxwell’s Equations. We finish the course by exploring the solution to Maxwell’s equations in free space – electromagnetic radiation.
This is the last course in a series of courses based on an MIT course: 8.02, Electricity and Magnetism, a required introductory physics class for all MIT undergraduates.
- 8.02.1x: Electricity and Magnetism: Electrostatics
- 8.02.2x:Electricity and magnetism: Magnetic Fields and Forces
- 8.02.3x :Electricity and Magnetism: Maxwell’s Equations
What you'll learn
- Faraday’s Law
- Inductors in DC and AC Circuits
- Displacement Current
- Maxwell’s Equations
- Properties of Electromagnetic Radiation
- Poynting Vector and Energy flow
Prerequisites
Meet your instructors
Krishna Rajagopal
William A. M. Burden Professor of Physics
After growing up in Toronto, Professor Rajagopal did his undergraduate work at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. He obtained his doctorate at Princeton University in 1993 and spent three years at Harvard as a Junior Fellow. He then spent one year at Caltech before coming to MIT in 1997. He became the Associate Head of the Department of Physics in 2009, served as the Chair of the MIT faculty from 2015 to 2017 and as MIT’s Dean for Digital Learning from 2017 to 2021.
Professor Rajagopal has also described the properties of the superfluid, color superconducting, quark matter that may lie at the centers of neutron stars, providing a clear understanding of the properties of matter at extraordinarily high densities. His work shows that cold quark matter at the highest densities is the QCD analogue of a superconductor but that if you could look at it using ordinary light it would look like a transparent insulator.
