sci.physics.electromag

On Tue, 4 Sep 2007, Szczepan Bialek wrote:

> "Timo A. Nieminen" wrote:
>> On Sun, 2 Sep 2007, maxwell wrote:
>>
>>>> Isn't this an elegant bit of mathematics that can be taught to
>>>> physics undergraduates.
>>
>> ???
>
> It has sense. Math is tought mainly together with physics. It is impossible
> to place the all into a textbook. So such bits have prefererences.
> In math teaching are homeworks. For them are assumption and data. If they
> were the solid body (as eather) and the MM when SR was an excelent job. The
> Authors were wery young. Young people are fluent in math.

From the context, I did not know what "this" might be. If "this" is SR,
then, sure, it can be taught to physics undergrads, and usually is.

Often tacked onto the end of an introductory course, or as a whole or part
of a second-year course. I think this is wrong - it would be nice to
integrate it into classical mechanics in an introductory course, even if
in a largely qualitative/conceptual way - that way, students won't feel
they've been taught "wrong" stuff in the first few classical mechanics
weeks of the course. A lot of relativity course modules pretty much say
"all that stuff is wrong", which is just wrong. All of kinematics in a
single reference frame still holds; it's just definitions of
displacement, velocity, and acceleration and how to use them. Newton's
laws, as written by Newton still hold; it's only F=ma you need to worry
about, and the definition of momentum. Introduce the Galilei
transformations as a useful approximation, rather than as truth. Useful to
do light, including waves and photons, first, so avoid the traditional
order of topics.

If "this" is general continuum mechanics, then it's an advanced course.
Although the general picture should be introduced at the beginning of,
say, a course in fluid dynamics, and the elasticity-free case dominating
the course clearly described as a simplification. Likewise for
elastodynamics (not that I've seen a course in elastodynamics offered to
physics undergrads).

I like the idea of unifying continuum mechanics and electrodynamics into a
single series of courses, perhaps 2 or 3. When the mathematical methods
are dominated by the Laplace and Helmholtz equations, it makes sense to
treat them together. Do fluids first, and you can even have nice physical
demonstrations of what div and curl mean.

--
Timo Nieminen - Home page: http://www. /people/nieminen/
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