Physics 250S, Winter 2010
Electricity and Magnetism


Course Home Page: http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~krieger/phys250.html


[ Instructor | Announcements | Course Progress | Homework | Class Room and Hours ]
[ Text Book | Teaching Assistant / Tutorials | Grading | Course Plan | Tentative Outline ]

Instructor

Peter Krieger

Associate Professor
Department of Physics
60 St. George Street
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M5S 1A7

Office: McLennan Laboratory 801 [Office Hours: Wed 2-4PM]
Phone: (416) 978-2950
Fax: (416) 978-8221
WWW: http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~krieger/
E-mail: krieger@physics.utoronto.ca : Please put PHY250 in subject line of any course-related emails - if you do not do this there is no guarantee that I will see it. I will endeavour to reply as quickly as possible to your e-mails. However, I cannot promise that I will do so outside of normal working hours (Monday-Friday 9-5 for example). Please include your name and student number in any communications. I will not respond to emails if I cannot tell who they are from. Please also note that I will NOT accept assigments via email or fax.

Announcements

Any announcements made outside of class time will appear here. I will endeavour to also post any announcements that are made verbally in class. However, I cannot promise that this will always occur. It is YOUR responsibility to attend class or, if you do not, to ensure that you are aware of what was discussed, including issues not directly related to course material.

11/04/10 Anyone who wishes to get a feeling for what information is provided on the exam formula sheet, should look at past exams, which are available from a university website (I don't know the link, but I'm sure anyone who's interested can find this). The formulae provided don't vary too much from year to year. Note that the course was called PHY251 in past years.

10/04/10 I said I would provide a bit of information on the final exam, so here it is. There are six questions which you are to do all of. The points break down roughly as 35% (Chapter 2), 42.5% (Chapter 5) and 22.5% (Chapter 7). Formulae sheets will be provided. You do not get to bring your own.

08/04/10 The assignment3 solutions are posted below. Please let me know if you see any problems.

01/04/10 Please note that the physics building will be open on Monday April 5, so you will have access to the drop box to submit your final assignment.
Also please note that you can find the mid-term solutions here with the usual username and password for solutions. Sorry for the delay. I meant to post these some time ago.

23/03/10 The problems for your third and final assignment have been reposted with a new problem 7, since the original problem is done in the text. Please ensure that you get the new version.

16/03/10 The problems for your final assignment are now posted below, in the usual place.

12/03/10 Your third quiz will take place during the tutorial on Monday, March 15. The quiz covers all of the chapter 5 material from sections 5.1.1-5.3.3, but only material of the kind we have discussed in class (and covered in tutorials). So I will not ask about section 5.3.2 and I will not ask about the magnetic field of a toroid. You should understand about currents, about the Lorentz force, and about the relationship between currents and magnetic fields. So you should be familiar with both the Biot-Savart law and Ampere's law, and know how to apply these to simple systems.

02/03/10 In the solutions posted yesterday, for the potential in question 3 the factor of 1/2 should be 1/8.

01/03/10 The solutions to the second assignment are now posted below, in the usual place.

26/02/10 It has come to my attention that some people appear to have obtained the solutions to problem sets from last year. Every year I have to make up and do new problems so that this does not happen. This takes time and effort. There were only two problems out of eight on the current assignment that were also on an assignment from last year, but I nevertheless find it frustrating the people spend their time hunting for old assignment solutions rather than doing the problems themselves. For those of you who do have old solutions, let me remind you of the warning below in the section entitled "A NOTE ON DOING THE ASSIGNMENTS" and in particular, of the fact that copying from any source is a serious academic offense. In any case, there will be no more opportunity for this since I will not assign any more problems that I have used in the past, which means even more time and effort making up new ones.

26/02/10 For those of you who were not in class on Wednesday, please note that if you are planning to hand in Assignment 2 late, you may do so ONLY until 5PM Monday March 1 (in the drop box). Shortly thereafter I will post the solutions so that you have them well in advance of the mid-term test which takes place in class on Wednesday.

25/02/10 The formula sheet for mid-term test can be found (here). The test consists of three questions, all of which you must to. It covers all the material of chapter 2 of the text. There are no questions specifically on the material of chapter 1, but of course you need to be able to apply the tools of vector calculus in doing the problems.

12/02/10 Solutions for the first problem set have been linked below, in the homework section. You will need a username and password for this. These will be distributed via email, through Blackboard.

10/02/10 The problems for your second assignment are now linked below, in the homework section. Please be sure to read the comments that appear before and after the problems.

05/02/10 Please remember that your second tutorial quiz will take place on Monday. The quiz is 20-25 minutes and covers the material in Chapter 2 up to the end of section 2.2.3, with an emphasis on Gauss's Law. You should understand where this law comes from, and also how it is used for the derivation of electric fields. As part of this, you should understand how to set up the appropriate integrals in cartesian, spherical and cylindrical coordindate systems. There is no formula sheet, though some formula are provided as part of the questions.

Please note that, for obvious reasons, the quiz given in each tutorial section is different. I do try to make them similar in difficulty, and the effects of small differences should average out over the four quizzes that we will have this term. However, if, after we have written all four quizzes, there is some evidence that a particular tutorial group was somehow disadvantaged, I will make an appropriate adjustment at that time.

22/01/10 Please remember that your first tutorial quiz will take place on Monday. The quiz is 15-20 minutes. For this you should be able to take the divergence and curl of a vector function, the gradient of a scalar function, and you should know how to do line integrals, surface integrals and volume integrals. For this quiz everything is in cartesian coordinates. You are not permitted a formula sheet, nor are any formulae provided, so you need to know the form of the derivatives and the integrals. The problems are relatively straightforward, of the kind that are done in the text and that we have done in class. Please note that you must write this quiz in the tutorial session in which you are registered unless you make special arrangements beforehand, with either me or Gabe (your TA).

14/01/10 I have made the course available on Blackboard, for those of you who prefer to get your information there. I've not used this before, so if there are problems please let me know.

13/01/10 The problems for your first assignment have now been linked below, in the homework section. I am trying to also make the appropriate links in Blackboard so that you can access the assignments from there if you wish, but there are technical problems at the moment, so for the time being, please use the links provided here.

04/01/10 Please note that while I do not anticipate any changes, the information on this web page (e.g. dates and grading schemes) is currently still tentative. This will be finalized by sometime in the first week of classes.

Course Progress ( Past Classes , Upcoming Classes )

The outline below is provided only as a guideline. Things may shift slightly as the course progresses, in which case the entries below will be updated. The shortening of the academic term this year means that I am still adjusting the course content, so some expect changes.

Some advice: One of the main problems students seem to have when taking electromagnetism for the first time arises because much of the mathematics is unfamiliar to them. The study of electromagnetism requires the use of multi-variate calculus and of vector calculus. While you will likely be doing multi-variate calculus concurrently, in your second-year calculus course, you may not see any vector calculus there before you see it (and need it) in this course. For that reason, the first month or so of PHY250 is very important. In the first six or seven lectures, we will cover the mathematics needed for the rest of the course. We will not do this in the same depth that you would see in a mathematics course, but we will cover everything that you will need for the rest of the course. The first assignment will probably be entirely on Chapter 1 of the text, which deals with this material. It is very important for you to ensure that you are as comfortable as possible with this material, by the time we begin Chapter 2.

06/01/10: Griffiths 1.1.1-1.1.4 [Overview, Vectors, Vector Algebra, Scalar and Vector Functions]
08/01/10: Griffiths 1.2.1-1.2.5 [Gradient, Divergence and Curl]
13/01/10: Griffiths 1.2.6-1.3.1 [Curl, Product Rules, Second Derivatives, Path Integrals]
15/01/10: Griffiths 1.3.1-1.3.5 [Path Integrals, Surface Intgrals, Volume Integrals, Fundamental Theorems]
20/01/10: Griffiths 1.3.5-1.4.1 [Fundamental Theorems; Integration by Parts, Spherical and Cylindrical Coordinate Systems]
22/01/10: Griffiths 1.4.2-1.5.3 [Curvilinear Coordinate Systems, Delta Functions]
27/01/10: Griffiths 1.6.1-2.1.4 [Theory of Vector Fields, Electric Fields]
29/01/10: Griffiths 2.2.1-2.2.2 [Divergenge of the Electric Field, Gauss's Law] Assignment 1 Due
03/02/10: Griffiths 2.2.1-2.2.2 [Gauss's Law, Curl of the Electric Field, Electric Potential]
05/02/10: Griffiths 2.2.3-2.3.5 [Electric Potential, Electrostatic Boundary Conditions].
10/02/10: Griffiths 2.3.5-2.4.4 [Electrostatic Boundary Conditions, Work and Energy in Electrostatics]
12/02/10: Griffiths 2.5.1-2.5.3 [Conductors, Capacitance]
----------------------------Reading Week------------------------------
24/02/10: Griffiths 2.5.4 [Capacitance, Start Chapter 5 on Magnetostatics]
26/02/10: Griffiths 5.1.1-5.1.3 [Magnetic Fields, Magnetic Forces, Currents] Assignment 2 Due
03/03/10: Class Test (covers to the end of chapter 2)
05/03/10: Griffiths 5.1.3-5.2.2 [Currents, Biot-Savart Law]
10/03/10: Griffiths 5.3.1-5.3.3 [Divergence and Curl of the Magnetic Field, Ampere's Law]
12/03/10: Griffiths 5.3.2-5.4.1 [Ampere's Law, Magnetic Vector Potential]
17/03/10: Griffiths 5.4.1-5.4.2 [Magnetic Vector Potential, Magnetostatic Boundary Conditions]
19/03/10: Griffiths 7.1.1-7.1.2 [Electrodynamics, emf, Motional emf]
24/03/10: Griffiths 7.1.3-7.2.2 [Motional emf, Universal Flux Rule, Lenz's Law, Faraday's Law, Induced Electric Fields,
26/03/10: Griffiths 7.2.3-7.2.4 [Inductance, Back emf, Energy in Magnetic Fields]
31/03/10: Griffiths 7.3.1-7.3.3 [Maxwell's Equations in Free Space] Assignment 3 Due

Homework Assignments

Assignments are due by 5PM (at the latest) on the dates listed below. You can either hand them in class, or in my drop box in the stairwell in the lobby of Burton tower (Box #43). When handing in an assignment in class, please do so either before or after the lecture, not during. The policy for late assignments is as follows: the first two assignments are both due on a Friday. For those, late assignments will be accepted until the following Tuesday with the following penalties: -10% for those received by Monday at 5PM; -20% for those received by 5PM Tuesday. After 5PM on Tuesday assignments will no longer be accepted. The final assignment is due on Wednesday March 31, the day of the final lecture. The University is closed on Friday of that week, so late assignments will be accepted only until 5PM Thursday April 1 (-10%). Students who miss an assignment (or other graded coursework) for reasons that are deemed valid by university policies (documented illness for instance) should come to see me.

As noted above, I will not accept assignments by e-mail or fax.

Assigned problems will be posted at least two weeks before the due date. Solutions will be posted sometime after the due date, on a password protected web page (the login information will be provided in class).

A NOTE ON DOING THE ASSIGNMENTS:

I expect that, in the course of doing your assignments, you will discuss them with your classmates at some level. This is fine, and a normal part of the study process. What you most emphatically should NOT do, is copy answers from your classmates (or from anywhere else). It is fine to discuss the problems, but when it comes to actually writing out your solutions you should do this by yourself. To copy answers from someone else is an academic offense. But the more important reason not to do this is that you will not learn the material if you do not do problems yourself. It is quite possible to understand the approach to solving a problem, but still find that when you sit down to actually do it, you somehow can't get it to work out. The only way to really learn the course material is to apply it. If you cannot do the assigned problems on your own, you are unlikely to pass either the test or the final exam, which together provide the majority of your final grade.

I am well aware that the solutions manual to Griffiths is easily obtainable on the web. In the past, the warning above has proven insufficient to discourage some people from copying solutions from this source. To put an end to this, I will not assign any problems from the text for credit. On each assignment there will be a list of suggested problems from the text (which will NOT be graded) and then some additional problems which will be. You can choose whether or not to do the problems from the text, but the ones chosen will be selected to aid you in doing the problems which will be marked.

For all graded problems, in addition to any mathematical work, I expect clear written statements at each stage in the solution. Full marks will not be awarded without this. Another problem that sometimes arises is that of legibility. It takes an enormous amount of time to grade ~100 problem sets and it is very frustrating for the marker if assignments are messy and difficult to read. Please put some effort into ensuring that your work is clearly written. And please staple the pages of your assignments together.



Problem Set Problems Due Date Solutions
Problem Set #1 Posted 13/01/10 Friday, January 29, 2010 Posted 12/02/10
Problem Set #2 Posted 10/02/10 Friday, February 26, 2010 Posted 01/03/10
Problem Set #3 Re-posted 23/03/10 Wednesday, March 31, 2010 Posted 08/04/10


Tests and Exams

During the term there will be a midterm test in class, and four brief (20 minutes) quizzes during your tutorial hour. The intention is for the quizzes to be rather straighforward problems to check that people are following and understanding the course material. The quiz component of your grade will be based on the best 3 out of 4. Because there are three different tutorial groups, there will be three different quizzes each time. Please note that you must write the quiz for YOUR tutorial group unless prior arrangements have been made.

The dates for the quizzes are: January 25, February 8, March 15 and March 29.

There will be one mid-term test which will take place in class, and a final exam. The class test is scheduled for Wednesday March 3. The test covers the material up to the end of chapter 2.

More information on the midterm test will appear closer to the test date.

A NOTE ON THE FINAL EXAM

Information on the final exam will appear later in the term.

The final examination schedule for U of T Arts & Science is available from the university web pages.

Class Room and Hours

Text Book

Reference Books

Teaching Assistant / Tutorials

Grading Scheme (Preliminary)

Course Plan


Tentative Outline

  1. Vector Analysis (Ch. 1)

  2. Electrostatics in free space (Ch. 2)

  3. Magnetostatics in free space (Ch. 5, except 5.4.3)

  4. Electrodynamics and Maxwell's Equations in Free Space (Chapter 7, 7.1.1 - 7.3.3)