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 XI: Conservative Forces

In this post, I present a conceptual question that is so important, I feel that no undergraduate student should complete an introductory calculus-based physics course without being able to correctly answer it. Given the way introductory calculus and introductory physics are traditionally taught, I just don’t think there is nearly enough carryover from the calculus […]