Introduction to Electrodynamics General

[unfocusedg...@gmail.com]

Hi, this is the thread where I suggest we put general discussion of the Electrodynamics subgroup.

Since we've hit about 11 members including myself I guess we'll get started next week. Once again, the text we'll be using is Introduction to Electrodynamics by Griffiths (3rd edition), which is . The prerequisite knowledge is just calculus (the first chapter in the book covers the required vector calculus material). Of course, I'd hope we can get through the text at a good pace, though not too fast to leave people behind, but maybe the first few weeks will be hit or miss until we find the right amount of pages per week to go through (for now I'm thinking 1/2 a chapter a week or so, depending on length). If people are having trouble, please say!

I will make the first thread tomorrow or Monday probably, outlining what people should study for the week. I think to learn math/physics properly it's important to do exercises, so I suggest we try to do as many as we can, though it's probably not worth me setting particular questions to do since I don't know which are worth focusing on, as I'm learning myself. For the time being I guess I just recommend that we do as many problems as we can individually, hopefully at least doing most of the non-trivial ones. If people get stuck on particular questions they can ask for help in the thread.

The first chapter is on vector calculus, so this will likely be revision for a lot of people, though maybe unfamiliar to others. I'm not sure what people's background is, so do you guys want to speed through this chapter in a week or spend the full two weeks on it? 

[ktgster]

I think we should only spend a week on calc review, however it is very important that you have a strong foundation in it.

[Thomas Lane]

There is a lot of material in chapt 1 even if it's mostly review. If we only spend a week on it, we should make sure that everyone is entirely comfortable with the later sections (there are plenty of problems for this).

Anyways, I've studied the Griffiths Qtm book, and in that book, a chapter every two weeks would have been a little intense (since I was working on other classes at the time). I can't really tell if his E&M will be a easier.

[unfocusedg...@gmail.com]

Hmm, I went up to page 200 of Griffiths' EM text in 2-3 weeks before, though I was studying maybe 1-2 hours a day. I think it's not very dense. When i was in university they covered maybe half of the topics in 8 weeks (16 hours) of lectures (though I did not attend them) so I think 6 months (26 weeks) should be pretty easy going.