2024 Faculty Courses Liberal arts and basic science courses Basic science and technology courses
Fundamentals of Electromagnetism 1 H
- Academic unit or major
- Basic science and technology courses
- Instructor(s)
- Hiro Munekata
- Class Format
- Lecture (Face-to-face)
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - 3-4 Tue
- Class
- H
- Course Code
- LAS.P103
- Number of credits
- 100
- Course offered
- 2024
- Offered quarter
- 3Q
- Syllabus updated
- Mar 14, 2025
- Language
- Japanese
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
This course teaches the basics of static electric and magnetic fields in vacuum, starting with Coulomb’s force law for charges.
Electromagnetism is important for understanding nature, and is essential for the study of science, engineering, life sciences, and other specialized courses. Students will understand how charges and current produce electric and magnetic fields, respectively, and their mathematical descriptions. This will allow them to understand static electromagnetic phenomena as well as allow them to solve basic problems in electromagnetism.
Course description and aims
By completing this course, students will be able to:
1) Understand the concepts of electric field, electric potential, electrostatic energy, magnetic flux density, magnetic moment, etc., correctly, and describe them mathematically.
2) Understand Gauss's law for electric fields and the Biot-Savart law for magnetic fields correctly, and find the electric field and magnetic flux density by applying said laws.
3) Find mathematical solutions to problems in electromagnetism expressed by the appropriate equations, and explain the physical meaning of said solutions.
Keywords
Coulomb’s law, electric field, Gauss's law, electric potential, conductor, condenser, capacitance, electrostatic energy, electric current, magnetic force, magnetic flux density, magnetic moment, Biot-Savart law
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
Two-thirds of each class is devoted to fundamentals and the rest to advanced content or application. To allow students to get a good understanding of the course contents and practice application, problems related to the contents of this course are provided in Exercises in Physics II.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Charges, Electric fields, Principle of superposition, Electric field lines, Gauss's law of electric fields | Express Gauss's law of E with an equation, and explain it in terms of electric-field lines. |
| Class 2 | Electric potential, Relation between electric fields and electrostatic potential, dipoles | Express with equations the relationship between E and electrostatic potential. Apply these equations to solve some problems. |
| Class 3 | Dipoles (continuation), Conductors and electric fields (part 1) | Understand E and electric-field lines in and out of a conductor. |
| Class 4 | Conductors and electric fields (part 2), Electrostatic energy | Understand the concept of electrostatic energy through the modeling of a parallel plate capacitor. |
| Class 5 | Review of a current, currents and magnetic fluxes, Fleming's law and outer product | Understand the concept of magnetic flux and magnetic-field lines around a straight line in which a current flows. |
| Class 6 | Lorentz force and outer product, Gauss's law of magnetic fields, Biot-ＳSavart law (part 1) | Understand the difference between an electric field and a magnetic field (flux). Get used to vector outer product. |
| Class 7 | Biot-Savart law (part 2), Towards final exam | Appreciate the carefulness of the experiment carried out by Biot and Savart in France. Review of the most important points. |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
H. Tanaka, Fundamental physics course Electromagnetism, Baifukan Co., Ltd (Japanese edition)
Reference books, course materials, etc.
M. Nakayama, Electromagnetism, Shokabo Co. Ltd. (Japanese edition)
Evaluation methods and criteria
Scores are based on the total of (1) attendance points and (2) the final written examination. The point of attendance is 3 point per each class, whereas the point of final examination is 79 point in full score.
Related courses
- LAS.P106 ： Exercises in Physics II
Prerequisites
No prerequisites.
Contact information (e-mail and phone) Notice : Please replace from ”[at]” to ”@”(half-width character).
munekata.h.aa[at]m.titech.ac.jp
Office hours
The most convenient time zone for me (HM) is in the afternoon of the class day. Please contact me or e-mail me after the class
for reservation if necessary. Other date and time is also available, but will be with ZOOM, the on-line basis.
Other
Refer "Schedule of the class H" for concrete contents. It will be uploaded in the window of of the class in SCOLA.
Outline will be explained in the first class of Oct. 8.