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    Physical Interpretation of Maxwells Equations

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    Sreedevi Menon
    Maxwell developed a theory of electromagnetism based on the concept of continuous fields rather than action at a distance. He expressed the force laws of Coulomb and others in terms of electric and magnetic fields. Maxwell derived four partial differential equations, now known as Maxwell's equations, which described electromagnetism completely. While building on the work of others like Faraday, Maxwell was the first to realize that these four equations fully described electromagnetic phenomena. He also discovered that electromagnetic waves propagate at the speed of light.

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    Physical Interpretation of Maxwells Equations

    Uploaded by

    Sreedevi Menon
    2K views2 pages
    Maxwell developed a theory of electromagnetism based on the concept of continuous fields rather than action at a distance. He expressed the force laws of Coulomb and others in terms of electric and magnetic fields. Maxwell derived four partial differential equations, now known as Maxwell's equations, which described electromagnetism completely. While building on the work of others like Faraday, Maxwell was the first to realize that these four equations fully described electromagnetic phenomena. He also discovered that electromagnetic waves propagate at the speed of light.

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    Physical Interpretation of Maxwells equations

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    Physical Interpretation of Maxwells equations

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    Maxwell developed a theory of electromagnetism based on the concept of continuous fields rather than action at a distance. He expressed the force laws of Coulomb and others in terms of electric and magnetic fields. Maxwell derived four partial differential equations, now known as Maxwell's equations, which described electromagnetism completely. While building on the work of others like Faraday, Maxwell was the first to realize that these four equations fully described electromagnetic phenomena. He also discovered that electromagnetic waves propagate at the speed of light.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    2K views2 pages

    Physical Interpretation of Maxwells Equations

    Uploaded by

    Sreedevi Menon
    Maxwell developed a theory of electromagnetism based on the concept of continuous fields rather than action at a distance. He expressed the force laws of Coulomb and others in terms of electric and magnetic fields. Maxwell derived four partial differential equations, now known as Maxwell's equations, which described electromagnetism completely. While building on the work of others like Faraday, Maxwell was the first to realize that these four equations fully described electromagnetic phenomena. He also discovered that electromagnetic waves propagate at the speed of light.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Physical interpretation

    Formulation by Maxwell in terms of Fields


    Beginning in the 1850s, Maxwell started work on the qualitative ideas about lines of force of
    Faraday and produced a completely different account of electrodynamics, based on the concept
    of continuous fields. He showed that the inverse-square force laws of Michell and Coulomb can
    equally well be expressed in terms of fields. In integral form, the flux of the electric field over
    any closed surface equals the charge enclosed within that surface. In differential form the same
    field law can be expressed by stating that the divergence of the field at any point equals the
    charge density at that point. Hence at any point free of charge, the divergence of the field is zero.
    (Incidentally, the fact that magnetic charges, i.e. mono-poles are absent, leads to the conclusion
    that the divergence of the magnetic field vanishes everywhere). Maxwell also expressed the
    dynamical relations of Ampere and Faraday in terms of fields associated with moving magnets
    and electric charges. The equations he derived were later converted to a set of four partial
    differential equations called as Maxwells equations. All the information encoded in these four
    equations had been derived directly from experimental observations and the laws of Michell,
    Coulomb, Ampere, Faraday etc. Maxwell had only corrected the Amperes law by adding the
    displacement current term. The rest of the equations were discovered by his predecessors. Still,
    all four of them are referred to as Maxwells equations. The reason is that Maxwell was the first
    one to realize that these four equations were all there is to Electromagnetic fields (i.e., the theory
    was complete). Maxwells equations, along with the Lorentz force equation, define
    Electrodynamics completely.
    Maxwell attempted to present formulation of electrodynamics in such a way that it did not rely
    on the concept of action at a distance. Similar to M. Faraday he regarded that the fields of force
    have consecutive parts and that the force is communicated from one part to adjacent parts over
    time. In other words, his main emphasis was on the idea of local action and not on the material
    mechanism for this action. He was of the opinion that a material mechanism would certainly
    satisfy local action, but that local action need not imply a material mechanism.
    Einstein said: "Since Maxwell's time, physical reality has been thought of as represented by
    continuous fields, and not capable of any mechanical interpretation. This change in the
    conception of reality is the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced
    since the time of Newton"
    Analogy and Differences in Electric and Magnetic Fields
    The additional term (Displacement current) Maxwell added to the right hand side of the equation
    for Ampere's law is analogous to that on the right hand side of Faraday's law. In Faraday's law
    that term is the derivative of the magnetic flux, while Maxwell's new term in Ampere's law
    equation has the derivative of the electric flux. Physically this term means that a changing
    electric field can create a magnetic field. Thus Maxwells equations (Amperes law and
    Faradays law) contain some analogus quantities in electric and magnetic fields.
    There are in fact two origins for the magnetic field:
    (1) the current density j, as Ampre had already established, and (2) due to called as the
    Displacement current.

    Though Maxwell added the electric current term in Ampere's law but he did not add a magnetic
    current term in Faraday's law. Here the analogy does not exist. All magnetic fields are created by
    some type of changing electric field because free magnetic monopoles do not exist and without
    magnetic monopoles there can be no magnetic current. Thus one of the important consequence of
    Faradays law- that All magnetic poles occur in pairs (i.e. dipoles)- was emphasized by Maxwell
    also.
    The Concept of Electromagnetic Fields
    The electromagnetic wave equation which evolved from Maxwells equations predicted that the
    electromagnetic radiation could propagate indefinitely through space, far away from their origin.
    Speed of Light
    Maxwell discovered that electromagnetic waves propagate at the speed of light. The speed in
    vacuum is independent both of the motion of the light source and of the inertial frame of
    reference of the observer. Thus he discovered a fundamental constant of nature: the speed of
    light.
    Similarity in the Field Equations of Electromagnetism and Relativity
    Maxwell augmented the Amperes law equation by the term or called as the
    displacement current. It is interesting to note that the process by which Maxwell found the final
    form of electromagnetic field equations is very much similar to the process by which Einstein
    arrived at the final field equations of general relativity. In both cases, the extra term was added in
    order to give a divergenceless field.

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