Electricity and Magnetism
Real electricity and magnetism for talented high schoolers.
Online from anywhere · or in-person in Princeton, NJ
A World Through the Lens of Electricity and Magnetism
Electricity and Magnetism is one of the six classical core courses of the Physics Lyceum: High School curriculum, taught on the Deep Physics model that runs through the whole SoTS Physics Lyceum.
The course runs on theory, problem-solving sessions, homework, and practical laboratory work. The Lyceum provides the equipment, and tuition covers it.
1. Electric Charge and Coulomb’s Law
Where electromagnetism starts. Electric charge as a fundamental property of matter. Conservation and quantization of charge. Coulomb’s law as the inverse-square force between point charges. Superposition: the field of many charges as the sum of individual fields.
2. Electric Fields and Potential
From a force on a test charge to a field everywhere. The electric field as force per unit charge. Field lines and what they encode. Electric potential and its connection to the field. Gauss’s law as a symmetry tool that bypasses direct integration.
3. Capacitance and Dielectrics
Storing energy in an electric field. Capacitance as charge per voltage. The parallel-plate capacitor. Dielectrics and how they boost capacitance. Energy stored in a charged capacitor, written as energy stored in the field itself.
4. Current, Resistance, and Conduction in Various Media
From a microscopic drift of electrons to the transistor. Electric current as charge in motion. Resistance, resistivity, and Ohm’s law. EMF, batteries, internal resistance. Kirchhoff’s two laws for any DC network. Conduction in different media: the Drude picture in metals, a glance at superconductivity, current in electrolytes and in gases, conduction in vacuum, and semiconductors with the p–n junction and the transistor at the end.
5. Magnetic Fields, Forces, and Magnetic Materials
What happens when charges start to move, and how matter responds to the field they make. The magnetic field. The Lorentz force on a moving charge. Force on a current-carrying wire and torque on a current loop. Sources of magnetic field: a long straight wire, a solenoid, and the laws (Biot–Savart, Ampère) behind them. Magnetic materials: diamagnetism, paramagnetism, ferromagnetism. No magnetic monopoles: the statement, parallel in form to Gauss’s law for E but opposite in content, that the magnetic flux through any closed surface vanishes. One of Maxwell’s four equations.
6. Electromagnetic Induction and AC Circuits
A changing magnetic field makes an electric field, and the circuits and waves that follow from it. Induction. Magnetic flux. Faraday’s law of induction. Lenz’s law and the direction of the induced current. Self- and mutual inductance. Energy stored in a magnetic field, alongside the energy already stored in an electric field. AC circuits. The LC oscillator as the electromagnetic harmonic oscillator, with the same period equation as a mass on a spring. Alternating current, with inductive and capacitive reactance and the phase shift each one introduces. Resonance in a series RCL circuit. AC power, RMS values, and the transformer. Maxwell’s equations and light. Maxwell’s displacement current, completing the four equations of electromagnetism. Electromagnetic waves at speed c, and light as one of them.
The specific topics, and the depth given to each, may shift depending on class priorities and the dynamics of the cohort.