Relativity and Electromagnetism

This course develops a unified description of electromagnetism and Einstein’s theory of special relativity, based upon the postulate that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial reference frames. Topics include relativistic phenomena, relativistic energy and momentum, Lorentz transformations, four-vectors in spacetime, differential operators and integral theorems of vector calculus, Maxwell’s equations in differential form, electromagnetic waves, and the electromagnetic vector potential. (PHYS 0110 or PHYS 0114; students may not receive credit for both PHYS 0214 and PHYS 0201) 3 hrs. lect.