PHYS 436 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Physics 436 Advanced Electromagnetism II
Announcements:
4/8/2025 - Marcus will be holding office hours this week on Thursday from 11am-12pm in Loomis 275 instead of his usual office hour on Friday.
4/2/2025 - There will be no in-person class on April 4th due to the Engineering Open House. A recorded lecture for April 4th is posted here.
2/11/2025 - If you need to be excused from discussion, please submit your excuse documentation through https://my.physics.illinois.edu/excuses/
Welcome to Physics 436 -- Class starts on Tue, January 21, 2025
Phys 436 is the second semester of a year-long course in Classical Electrodynamics. The focus of 435 was to define the basic structure of E&M culminating in the completion of Maxwell's equations and the demonstration of electromagnetic waves. In Phys 436 we will use Maxwell's equations to define conservations laws for energy and momentum, examine in detail the properties of electromagnetic waves, compute how light scatters from interfaces, define the concept of optical dispersion, and investigate how waves propagate in bounded structures such as waveguides and transmission lines. We will also see how accelerating charges generate electromagnetic radiation. Finally, we will show how special relativitiy follows logically from Maxwell's equations, how concepts such as relativistic length contraction are required to make sense of conservation laws, and develop a covariant formulation of E&M. When the course is done you will have the machinery you need to understand any topic that uses E&M, ranging from satellites to fiber optics to transmon qubits.
Contact Information
Please use the email addresses listed below if you have any questions about any of the course components. Office hours start the second week of classes.
| Name | Role | Office Hour | Office Hour Location | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angela Kou | Professor | Fri 10am-11am |
216 MRL |
akou@illinois.edu |
| Marc Klinger | Discussion TA | Thu 10am-11am | 3115 ESB | marck3@illinois.edu |
| Ka Ho Lam | Grader | Fri 3pm-4pm | 258 Loomis | khlam4@illinois.edu |
| Marcus Rosales | Grader |
Fri 12pm-1pm |
279 Loomis |
marcusr2@illinois.edu |
Academic Integrity
All activities in this course, including documentation submitted for petition for an excused absence, are subject to the Academic Integrity rules as described in Article 1, Part 4, Academic Integrity, of the Student Code. Note that copying solutions for any component of the course constitutes a FAIR violation and will be referred to the college.