Relativistic Theory of Electrodynamics: the full story

Electromagnetism: Lecture 7

Theoretical physicist Dr Andrew Mitchell presents an undergraduate lecture course on classical Electromagnetism / Electrodynamics at University College Dublin.

In this comprehensive lecture, I discuss in detail the theoretical formulation of electromagnetism in terms of Einstein's Special Relativity. I introduce from scratch all the technical and mathematical detail about 4-vectors, Lorentz transformations, and relativistic invariants needed for electrodynamics. I discuss the 4-potential and 4-current, and present the covariant formulation of Maxwell's equations in terms of these objects. I examine the electromagnetic field tensor, and show explicitly how electric and magnetic phenomena become intertwined upon changing inertial reference frame. Finally, I derive the relativistic electrodynamic Lagrangian using powerful general principles of locality, Lorentz invariance, and gauge invariance. From it, the Principle of Least Action yields Maxwell's equations, bringing us full-circle.

The textbook "Introduction to Electrodynamics" by Griffiths is recommended reading to accompany this course.

[benlou]

Amazing! This video should have a lot more views

[lucamattioni]

Thank you very much professor! This video has been very helpful lately: it's style Is clean, it is rigorous, but this rigore doesn't overshadow the physical intuition. Not only this lecture, but also the others (for example the one on potentials) managed to clarify to me concepts that I used to find very unintuitive. So thank you again!

[mehdinourishirazi]

A marvelous pedagogical 1:57:34 Lec. delivered with proper scope and depth in content, easy to listen and clear level of English language. An informative and well explained Lec. indeed.
Thanks a lot Dr. Mitchell.

[Gismho]

This is an excellent tutorial, very clear and readily understandable. I cannot understand why there are only 124 likes to date. Thank you Dr. Mitchell. Looking forward to viewing your other videos.

[mooseriderwpg]

thank you so much sir!!!! while i certainly appreciate any indian youtubers bringing relativistic electrodynamics into nicely designed, concise videos, its also quite nice to have such a long lecture where i can just understand everything in plain english with ease

[jackr]

I wish i could ask my teacher about this before i need to graduate from my career

[omajalik.joseph]

The lecture is interesting but the writing is very tinny to the eyes.It needs to be enlarged.Thanks.