Introduction to Electrodynamics Week 3

[unfocusedg...@gmail.com]

Hi, this week I'd like to get to the end of chapter 2 in the book if possible (up to page 103) since I think electrostatics should be fairly straightforward. Hope a few people are still following.

I'm on a plane for 12 hours tomorrow so I should be able to get away from playing games to focus on this and other work...

[unfocusedg...@gmail.com]

Regarding the note at the bottom of page 98, it says that conductors behave quite differently in the 1D and 2D cases. Would anyone be able to explain the reason for the differences here?

[Thomas Lane]

(Assuming you haven't already found the answer) From my undergraduate understanding of QM, the energies of electrons' wave functions in an object exert pressure on the walls of the object since fermions can't exist in degenerate states. So in a 1-D or 2-D examples of charged objects, you can't actually approximate to 1-D and 2-D analogs since electrons' wave functions are inherently 3-D.

Sorry, I've been so sporadic these last two weeks. Mid-terms are over for me, so I can find time to work through the book again. Does anyone have a list of problems they think are essential from chpt. 2?