A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations

The author Daniel Fleisch is to be congratulated for this wonderful book. It is perfect for both students and self learners. There are nice exercises at the end of each chapter. There are on-line hints to solve each of the problems or you can look up the fully solved answer. If you are a student you should obviously try to solve the problems first without help and then resort to the hints and fully worked out problems. For more casual readers it is wonderful just to see the worked out problems. Each of the chapters is succinct and the writing very clear. The book is written at a undergraduate level. A few errors in the text appear to have been worked out with each successive printing. Please see the Cambridge website errata list. You will need the basics of vector and multidimensional calculus to easily follow the text. Some basic understanding of electricity and magnetism would also be helpful. I have not looked at the lectures on You-Tube but look forward to watching them. The same author has another text on vectors and tensors which I have just ordered. I would encourage him to write a similar style books on basic quantum mechanics and particle physics. Addendum:According to Amazon I first ordered this work in 2011. I decided to read it once again after ten years. It remains one of the best examples texts that are written for self learners. I would only add that review of basic trigonometry, vector calculus, spherical and cylindrical coordinate systems will make your study easier. This should include familiarity with flux, gradient, divergence, and curl. Some degree of comfort with Stoke's theorem and the divergence theorem is also helpful. If you have that foundation, Fleisch's Maxwell's Equations is a fast and beautiful read. The question is what do you do if your foundation was never built or needs to be refreshed. There are many workbooks. I have enjoyed Stroud's Engineering Mathematics and Advanced Engineering Mathematics. Their approach of step by step programed learning works well. However, I do wish that they had worked out solutions for the additional problems. My 1st edition of Schey's Divergence, Grad, Curl and all that is extremely well worn. I have not seen the newer editions. Hopefully they have more examples with fully worked out solutions. Someone should write a version for self learners with fully worked out solutions would be great. For self learners the Schaum 3000 solved problems series has lot of worked out examples. My copies of Precalculus, Calculus, and Physics have been extensively used. There are many other alternatives. Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences by Boas is widely used in colleges prior to advanced physics and engineering classes. Unfortunately it does not have worked out solutions for the problems. For a quick review of the the math and physics problems please see Chris McMullen's 100 Instructive Calculus-based Physics Examples. Volume 2 :Electricity and Magnetism. I have just started it. It looks well done and will write a review of it in the future.

Maxwell's equations are some of the most important things that you will learn if you are taking physics and/or working on an electrical engineering degree. They basically describe the concepts of electricity and magnetism, which apply to things like the power to our homes to semiconductor chips that are in every single device we own. Unfortunately, a lot of the textbooks (both physics and EM engineering textbooks) give them a bit of short shrift, giving a basic explanation and maybe deriving one or two of them, but do not give a good explanation of why they are useful and, thus, what they represent can be lost on students. This is a small book (about 130 pages) that covers all four equations, one per chapter. That breaks down what each equation represents, what the variables in the equation mean, and provides both the integral form of the equations and the differential form. I think the best way to use this guide is to supplement your textbook material so that when you get to the point in the textbook where one of the equations is discussed, use this to flesh out the theory behind the equations that your textbook may not cover (or cover in as much detail). To be clear, this is not something like "Maxwell's Equations for Dummies" or something like that, which assumes you have little to no background going in. You do need to have some understanding of calculus (if you have taken multivariable calculus, that will definitely help because there is a lot of discussion of surface integrals and vectors), and know some of the physics concepts you will learn before getting to the electricity and magnetism topics (which is covered in the second semester of physics). So, if you are taking calculus-based physics and/or have to take an electricity and magnetism class (electric and magnetic fields) as a part of an engineering program, this will be very useful. It is probably overkill for those who just have to take algebra-based physics because it will go way beyond what you will be exposed to in class or expected to learn.

I purchased this book on Maxwell's Equations for a peculiar reason. I have a t-shirt that lists the four Maxwell Equations that God purportedly used to create light. I wanted to be able to answer any technical questions I might get while wearing it. Humor aside, this book is truly 5-star. Both the integral and differential forms of Gauss's Laws of electricity and magnetism, Faraday's Law, and the Ampere-Maxwell Law are provided. The book is organized into separate sections for each equation. Within each section are detailed explanations of each variable, constant and mathematical operation. There are representative problems with solutions for calculating electric and magnetic fields for practical scientific or engineering application. There are also problems for you to test your understanding. If you want to have a fundamental understanding of electromagnetism this book is a great resource. It goes well beyond what you will find in introductory physics textbooks. After reading this book, I believe I am fully prepared to answer any technical question about Maxwell's Equations I might get wearing my t-shirt, even if I have to refer back to the book for reference. Excellent book for both undergraduate and graduate students and professional scientists and engineers. Also for those who just what to understand what's in the air around them.

A complete gem. So often, so-called mathematical "teaching" texts are just mathematicians talking to other mathematicians or geniuses with nothing but pages of terse non-user-friendly proofs and theorems, most of which are impenetrable to many who might otherwise be capable of understanding the subject. This book sets out to get you to understand the subject, not just regurgitate endless proofs. It is a real teacher helping real learners to understand. Every equation is fully explained and even annotated when necessary. Copious well thought out, clear diagrams and worked examples consistently get the messages through and demolish ambiguity. To get the best out of this book, you will need a reasonable (not genuis-level) undestanding of multivariate calculus and vector calculus. I can't help feeling that this book represents the writing on the wall for the worst of the old-fashioned style of teaching text. I'm not aware of anythng else like it but I'm pretty sure there will soon be many more books like it. The most important proof this book provides is that Maths is not impenetrable but has simply been traditionally made impenetrable by those who can't or won't explain. This book shows clearly the difference between explanation and mere definitions and proofs.

I dont know how many ways I can say, I loved this book sooo much. When I was simply trying to understand the Maxwell's equations, this book saved me. Guess what, this book would refresh concept even from the very basic vector dot product, cross product etc, so there is no chance that, the reader will find some concepts inaccessible. It covers what is divergence, what is gradient, what is Curl etc (even though, I would recommend the reader to get the concept of Divergence, Curl, Gradient cleared before reading this book; the reader can get those concepts from Khan Academy online). This book explained well 'what is path integral', 'what is surface integral', 'why there is a circle sign in the middle of a integral operator' etc. Anyway, I wont believe that, someone who understands calculus, wont understand maxwell's equations even after reading this very thin book with very less effort. The reader does not even need to be a master of calculus. If a partial derivative and Integral operator makes sense to the reader, he/she will find this book accessible. In the last chapter, (chapter 5), the author derived the Electromagnetic wave equations from maxwell's equation. That part was the most exciting part for me as I was simply waiting for learning that. If the reader knows that, a Wave Equation can be expressed in second order partial derivative form, then, this chapter will makes sense. This book did not explain where and how we got the Wave equation using second order partial derivative. I think, the author could explain that in a paragraph by writing few lines. As I was already familiar with wave equation, I did not have any problem understanding that part. Anyway, I find my every penny worth and I feel myself fortunate that I bought this book.

Die Maxwell'schen Gleichungen, stellen den Beginn einer neuen Physik dar.In diesem Werk werden in knapper Form die wesentliche Erkenntnisse der Maxwell'schen Theorie auf den Punkt gebracht und anhand einfacher einleuchtender Beispiele gezeigt, wie man sie anwendet. Wenn man die Mathematik kann, das ist allerdings die Voraussetzung, ist man in der Lage innerhalb eines Nachmittags dieses Werk zu verinnerlichen, und sich die wichtigsten Resultate der Klassischen Elektrodynamik ins Gedächtnis zurückzurufen und was man damit machen kann.

Great value, the book offers a clear explanation to all aspects of the maxwell equations at an affordable price! The book also gives some exercises and detailed answers at the end of all (sub)chapters. It might be a good idea to have some knowledge about vectors, vector fields and matrices. Thats probably the reason amazon recommended also buying a students guide to vectors and tensors. I have not read that book, so I am not sure if its a good recommendation to read before reading this book.

One of the best book i ever studied. He author nicely explain something which is not written in standard text book.