Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XVIII: The Maxwell Equations

The Maxwell equations contain everything mentioned in an introductory calculus-based electromagnetic theory course, and then some. They contain detailed mathematical structure and deep insight into electromagnetic fields. They are a magnificent playground for learning the various theorems of vector calculus, and applying these theorems to the fields of particles naturally leads to things like divergence, […]

Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XIII: Differential Equations

This question may very well be beyond the scope of a traditional introductory calculus-based physics course, but given the recent trend in early introduction to computational physics with curricula like Matter & Interactions it may be within the scope of a reformed course. In classical physics, finding a particle’s trajectory under the influence of a […]