PHYS 436 :: Physics Illinois :: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Physics 436 Advanced Electromagnetism II

Phys 436 Hour Exam I ...

... will take place in class on Wed., Mar. 6. The exam will cover Chs. 8-9.3.1 of Griffiths, i.e., Lectures 1-9 (including the Fresnel formulas There will be no Fresnel formula question on this exam). The exam will be open book, meaning you can bring any static print materials including the text, printouts of lecture notes, homeworks, or a pre-prepared equation sheet of your own making. Electronic devices of any sort are not permitted. Calculators will be neither allowed nor needed. I don't have a sample exam available, but the style will be similar exams you took in Phys 435. It will probably have 2-3 problems, one of which will be "easy" and one "hard."


Welcome to Physics 436 -- Class starts on Wed., Jan. 17, 2023.

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.

Name Role Office Hour Office Hour Location Email
 Peter Abbamonte Professor

Wed 2-3 pm

1004 MRL abbamont@illinois.edu
Billy Passias  Discussion TA  Fri 4-5 pm 3139 ESB passias2@illinois.edu
Chunyu Lu Grader Thu 4-5 pm 251 Loomis chunyul3@illinois.edu
Tianshi Zhou Grader Fri 11 am - 12 pm 390V Loomis tianshi4@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.