514 (Winter 2025)

PHYS 514:  Electrodynamics  (Winter quarter, 2025)

M W 10:30-12:20 PAA  A114

Instructor:   Silas Beane      B457   OH:  M 2:00-4:00pm, F 12:30-1:30pm

TAs:     Andrea Paolini                                              B426     OH:  W 12:30-1:30pm

               Jacob Crawford                                           B422      OH:  TH  1:30-2:30pm

Subject matter and textbook

This is the second quarter of a year-long sequence in graduate-level electrodynamics. The text for the course is 

Classical Electrodynamics by Jackson.  An educated person should have pretty good familiarity with Chapters 1-16 

of Jackson. In this second quarter we will cover approximately Chapters 6-9. There will be several mathematical interludes

throughout the quarter, however these will always occur in the context of specific issues in electrodynamics. A secondary 

reference text for E&M is Modern Electrodynamics by Zangwill, and a useful text for mathematical issues is Mathematics 

for Physicists by Dennery and Krzywicki.

Jackson for Life

Communication

I strongly encourage students to communicate with me by email for administrative issues. I'll regularly communicate with the class by email. But, please, no physics questions via email. Unless they are of the yes-no variety they will likely go unanswered. If necessary you may attempt to visit me outside of office hours but please do not be offended if I'm unable to speak with you immediately.

Reading assignments

There will be weekly reading assignments posted on the calendar below. I will usually not remind you about this; it will be your responsibility to keep track of the calendar and to do the readings ahead of lecture. Failure to do the readings may result in you being unable to follow what we do in the class period.

Homework, exams and grades

The grades for this course will be based on homework (20%), a midterm exam (40%) and a final exam (40%). The final exam will be comprehensive. There will be weekly problem sets due on Friday before midnight. In grading there will be a strong emphasis on neatness and logic of presentation. The homeworks will be long and difficult. If you start working on an assignment the day before it’s due, you will not finish it in time. Late homework will not be accepted unless there is a compelling rationale. I believe that most of what you’ll get out of this class will be from the homework. I encourage you to work on the homework in groups. However, the work that you hand in must be your own, and you must list your collaborators on your manuscript as well as any references you have used (e.g. if you find a solution to a problem on the web, you must cite the url). Exams will be in class, closed-book. 

Religious Accommodations

Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. 

The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/). 

Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/).

Calendar