Maxwell's Equations: Unifying Electricity and Magnetism, Schemes and Mind Maps of Physics

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General Physics 1/ Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics General Physics 2 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Lesson 10.

Maxwell's Equations and

Hertz's Experiments

Do you know who this scientist is?

The first battery was invented by Alessandro Volta in

Maxwell’s Equations 1800 1820 1827 1831

Oersted discovered that a compass needle ticks when placed near a current-carrying source. Maxwell’s Equations 1800 1820 1827 1831

Faraday demonstrated that inserting a magnet through a solenoid generates current. Maxwell’s Equations 1800 1820 1827 1831

It took half a century of gradual development and the mathematical sagacity of James Clerk Maxwell to modify the works of Coulomb, Gauss, Ampère, and Faraday to unify electricity and magnetism into one consistent and symmetrical field that we know now as electromagnetism. Maxwell’s Equations 1800 1820 1827 1831

Principle Overview Equation Gauss’s Law for Magnetism The net magnetic flux through a closed surface is zero. Maxwell’s Four Equations

Principle Overview Equation Faraday’s Law A changing magnetic field induces an electric field. Maxwell’s Four Equations

Maxwell’s Equations A plaque commemoration of Maxwell’s Four Equations Type equation here.

Maxwell’s Equations Electric and Magnetic Fields ● Faraday’s law established that a magnetic field that varies over time generates an electric field. ● Maxwell corrected Ampère’s law to demonstrate that a time-varying electric field may in turn also generate a magnetic field. This interrelationship is the core of the four Maxwell’s equations.

Maxwell’s Equations Electric and Magnetic Fields ● “time-varying magnetic and electric fields” create a disturbance, thus propagating in space like a wave, as shown:

Maxwell’s Equations Light as an Electromagnetic Wave ● Maxwell theorized in 1865 that an electromagnetic disturbance must happen in vacuum such that its speed is equivalent to the speed of light. ● By using the Four Equations, he was able to establish the electromagnetic nature of light.

Remember In the words of James Clerk Maxwell himself, “The velocity (computed above) is so nearly that of light, that it seems we have strong reasons to conclude that light itself (including radiant heat, and other radiations, if any) is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic waves.” ( 1865 )

Electromagnetic Radiation Light as an Electromagnetic Wave ● Maxwell’s findings were limited to the maths until the German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (in honor of whom the unit of frequency is named) proved the existence of electromagnetic waves by producing macroscopic wavelengths in a laboratory in 1886.