Teacher: Dan Styer, Wright 215, 775-8183,
Dan.Styer@oberlin.edu
home telephone 281-1348 (2:30 pm to 9:00 pm only).
Office hours: Please feel free to drop in between 8:30 am and 3:00 pm. (I am often in my office later, depending on my sons' high school schedules.)
Meeting times: This is a two-credit-hour, second-half-of-the-semester module course. Class: MWF at 11:00 am. Conference: Thursday at 10:00 am. Wright Laboratory room 114.
Course web site: http://www.oberlin.edu/physics/dstyer/Electrodynamics. I will post handouts, problem assignments, and model solutions here.
Textbook: David J. Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics
Topics:
The course topics are pretty simple: We'll start with Griffiths chapter 7,
Electrodynamics, and work our way through the book from there! I'll just
say that regardless of what happens, we'll fit in some Relativistic Electrodynamics,
because I love this subject so dearly.
Exams, homework, grading: There will be a two-hour open-book take-home final exam due at 9:00 pm on Thursday, 14 May (the time set by the registrar). Problem sets will be distributed on each Friday and will be due in class the following Friday; late papers will be accepted only in cases of illness. When writing your solutions, describe (in words) the thought that went into your work as well as describing (in equations) the mathematical manipulations involved. Anyone earning a final score of 50% or lower will not receive credit for this course.
Collaboration and references: I encourage you to collaborate or to seek printed help in working the problems, but the final write-up must be entirely your own: you may not copy word for word or equation for equation. When you do obtain outside help you must acknowledge it. (E.g. "By integrating Griffiths equation [5.96] I find that..." or "Employing the substitution u = sin(x) (suggested by Carol Hall)..." or even "In working these problems I benefited from discussions with Mike Fisher and Jim Newton.") Such an acknowledgment will never lower your grade; it is required as a simple matter of intellectual fairness.
David J. Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics [QC680.G74 1999]
Mark A. Heald and Jerry B. Marion, Classical Electromagnetic Radiation [QC661.H43 1995]
William C. Elmore and Mark A. Heald, Physics of Waves [531.33El64P]
Davison E. Soper, Classical Field Theory [on order]