Department of Physics, Unit Catalogue 2010/11 |
PH10006: Electricity & magnetism |
 Credits:
| 6 |
| Level:
| Certificate |
| Period: | This unit is available in... |
| Semester 2 |
| Assessment:
| EX 100% |
| Supplementary Assessment: | PH10006 - Mandatory Extra Work (where allowed by programme regulations) |
| Requisites:
| Before taking this unit you must take PH10007 or equivalent. |
| Description:
| Aims: The aims of this unit are to introduce the fundamental laws of electricity and magnetism and to develop techniques used in the solution of simple field problems, both vector and scalar. Learning Outcomes: After taking this unit the student should be able to: * state the basic laws of electricity and magnetism; * define scalar and vector fields and represent them graphically; * determine the forces due to electric and magnetic fields acting on charges and currents; * determine electric fields, potentials and energies due to simple, static charge distributions; * determine magnetic fields and energies due to simple, steady current distributions; * determine electric fields, e.m.f.s and induced currents due to varying magnetic fields. Skills: Numeracy T/F A, Problem Solving T/F A. Content: Introduction to scalar and vector fields (1 hour). Electrostatics (9 hours): Electric charge, Coulomb's Law, superposition of forces, electric charge distribution, the electric field, electric flux, Gauss's Law, examples of field distributions, electric dipoles. Line integral of the electric field, potential difference, calculation of fields from potentials, examples of potential distributions, energy associated with electric field. Electric field around conductors, capacitors and their capacitance, energy stored. Magnetism (7 hours): Lorentz force law, force on a current-carrying wire, force between current-carrying wires, torque on a current loop, magnetic dipoles. Biot-Savart Law, Ampere's Law, magnetic flux, Gauss's Law in magnetism, examples of field distributions. Electromagnetic induction (5 hours): Induced e.m.f. and examples, Faraday's Law, Lenz's Law, energy stored in a magnetic field, self and mutual inductance, energy stored in an inductor. |