Welcome to Physics 441!
Fall 2019
General Information
Instructor: John S. Colton
Email: john_colton@byu.edu
Office: N335 ESC
Office hours in room N363: MWF 9-10:30 am, only on days that HW is due (or by appointment)
TA/TA office hours: Daniel Jones, danielkjones17@gmail.com
Office hours in room N363: Tues: 2-4 pm; Thurs: 2-4 pm; if HW is due on the following Monday, then also Friday: 12-2 pm
Max
- HW, Grades, Syllabus, and Schedule: //max.byu.edu/20195-phscs441
Handouts
Here are handouts for/from various class periods (or, in most cases, "virtual handouts," as I won't generally hand out physical copies of these).
- lecture 1 - What you should already know about electric field and potential.pdf
- lecture 6 - field from a spherical shell.nb - Mathematica code demonstrating the "Assuming" command
- lecture 13 - Parallel Equations for the Electric and Magnetic Fields.pdf - List of most of the important equations in Phys 441, organized according to electric and magnetic field versions of similar equations
- lecture 14 - relaxation examples.pdf - output images for some relaxation examples shown in class
- lecture 15 - charge density from image problem.nb - Mathematica notebooks for the canonical image problem
- lecture 16 - orthogonality of sine functions.nb - Mathematica notebook demonstrating the orthogonality of sine functions
- lecture 16 - separation of variables - 2D semi-infinite.nb - Mathematica notebook for separation of variables 2D semi-infinite problem
- lecture 16 - separation of variables - 3D cube.nb - Mathematica notebook for separation of variables 3D cube problem
- lecture 17 - legendre polynomials.pdf - summary of information about the Legendre polynomials
- lecture 19 - worked SOV problem given sigma on a shell.pdf - worked separation of variables problem discussed very quickly in class
- lecture 19 - field lines of a pure electric dipole.nb - Mathematica notebook to plot the field lines of a pure electric dipole, namely E = C/r3 (2 cos(theta) r-hat + sin(theta) theta-hat). I didn't show this plot in class this semester, but did talk about how that electric field formula is special.
- lecture 23 - Electric fields around spheres.pdf - figures from Griffiths of electric fields around spheres
- lecture 32 - field of magnetized cylinder - z axis.nb - Mathematica notebook to plot the magnetic field from a magnetized cylinder
- lecture 39 - advanced circuits topics 1.pdf - handout for lecture 39 that should be mostly review of Phys 220 and 145 (not in Griffiths)
- lecture 40 - advanced circuits topics 2.pdf - handout for lecture 40 that may be mostly new circuit-related material (not in Griffiths)
- lecture 41 - Gaussian units.pdf - handout for lecture 41 on Gaussian units (not in Griffiths)
- lecture 42 - convolutions.pdf - handout for lecture 42 on convolutions (not in Griffiths) - sorry, this just covers what a convolution is, and not the details about how to frame various E&M equations in terms of convolutions that we also talked about in class. If you missed class that day and want that info you'll probably have to get those notes from a classmate.
- lecture 42 - convolution demonstration.nb - Mathematica notebook to demonstrate what a convolution is (not in Griffiths)
Past Exams
Here are a few actual exams from past semesters. If you are using these to study, I highly recommend you work out the exams on your own BEFORE looking at the solutions. Also note that the coverage from year to year is not necessarily consistent, both in terms of overall material covered and material covered for each exam. In particular in Fall 2016 we covered more circuits than I plan to cover this semester, and the circuits topics were part of Exam 3. There may be other differences.
- Exam 1
- Exam 2
- Exam 2 - Spring 2016.docx | Exam 2 - Spring 2016 - solutions.pdf
- Exam 2 - Fall 2016.docx | Exam 2 - Fall 2016 - solutions.pdf- Oops, looks like there are a couple of errors in the solutions:
- Problem 1.9 (multiple choice) - my logic is good, but I accidentally wrote // instead of perpendicular in my description of the second boundary condition.
- I dropped a negative sign from the bound volume charge density of problem 5.
- Exam 3 - See note above about the difference in material from previous semesters
- Final Exam
- Final Exam - Spring 2016.docx | Final Exam - Spring 2016 - solutions.pdf
- Final Exam - Fall 2016.docx | Final Exam - Fall 2016 - solutions.pdf (with last page removed, since it was used as a homework problem in a later semester)