Deep Physics: Electricity and Magnetism for Talented High Schoolers, Princeton
Real electricity and magnetism, taught from Coulomb’s law through fields, circuits, magnetic forces, and induction. For talented high schoolers.
A World Through the Lens of Electricity and Magnetism
Almost everything in modern technology, from the spark of a battery to the light from the Sun, is one phenomenon. Electricity and magnetism are two sides of it.
Rub a balloon on your hair and press it to a wall. It sticks. Friction transferred a few electrons, and the resulting force holds the balloon up against gravity.
Lay a magnet on a table next to a wire. Switch on the current. The wire jumps. The same charges in the wire feel a force that did not exist a moment earlier.
Drop a strong magnet through a copper tube. It falls in slow motion. No friction touches the walls. The currents the magnet induces in the tube push back on it.
Plug your laptop charger into the wall. The brick has no moving parts. The voltage going in is different from the voltage coming out. Two coils share one changing magnetic field.
Electricity and magnetism look like two separate subjects. They are not. A static charge and a moving charge interact through fields that are themselves linked: a changing magnetic field makes an electric field, a moving charge makes a magnetic field. The same set of laws describes a battery, a transformer, an antenna, and the light from the Sun.
This course teaches you what physicists actually know about it. From first principles.
You will:
- Compute the electric field and potential of a simple charge configuration from Coulomb’s law and superposition.
- Apply Gauss’s law to use symmetry on problems no direct calculation could touch.
- Solve any DC circuit with Kirchhoff’s two laws and Ohm’s law.
- Use Faraday’s and Lenz’s laws to predict the EMF induced by a changing magnetic flux, and the direction of the induced current.
By the end, you will think about charge, field, and induction the way a physicist thinks about them.
What You Will Actually Understand
By the end of the course, you will understand six core ideas of electricity and magnetism.
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 from first principles. Dielectrics and how they boost capacitance. Energy stored in a charged capacitor, written as energy stored in the field itself.
4. Current, Resistance, and DC Circuits
From a microscopic drift of electrons to Ohm’s law. Electric current and the model of charge in motion through a conductor. Resistance, resistivity, and Ohm’s law. EMF, batteries, internal resistance. Kirchhoff’s two laws and the procedure for solving any DC network.
5. Magnetic Fields and Forces on Currents
What happens when charges start to move. 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.
6. Electromagnetic Induction
A changing magnetic field makes an electric field. Magnetic flux. Faraday’s law of induction. Lenz’s law and the direction of the induced current. Self- and mutual inductance. The transformer and AC power, taken as far as the laws of induction will carry them.
The specific topics, and the depth given to each, may shift depending on class priorities and the dynamics of the cohort. The destination, a working understanding of electricity and magnetism from charge through induction, stays the same.
Schedule, Pricing & Enrollment
Formats: Fall, Spring, and Summer semesters.
Schedule, format, tuition, refund policy, and transcripts apply to every Lyceum course. They live on the Physics Lyceum: High School overview.
To enroll, schedule a call. We confirm fit, prerequisites, and the right semester.
Part of the SoTS Physics Lyceum
Electricity and Magnetism is one of eight semester-long physics courses in the SoTS Physics Lyceum: a multi-year curriculum in Princeton, NJ.
Mechanics of motion. Mechanics of bodies and fluids. Waves and oscillations. Thermodynamics. Electricity and magnetism. Optics and atomic structure. Special Relativity. Quantum mechanics.
The Lyceum is built on the Deep Physics methodology.