Physics II: Electromagnetism

PH 102

Lecture-1

January-May 2025

Vector and Scalar field

Differential calculous of a scalar field
The gradient and its interpretation
Differential calculous of a vector field
The Divergence
The curl
Important Identies
Summary
1
 Contact details

Dr. M.C. Kumar

Department of Physics
IIT Guwahati
Guwahati-781039
Phone : +91 361 258 3566
Email : [email protected]
Of ce room : Top oor, Annex Building, Physics Department

IIT Guwahati 2 PH102 (2025)

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Classes
• There will be two classes and a tutorial in a week (just like PH101).
• Classes: Wednesday: 9 am-9:55 am (Div. I & II) and 4 pm-4:55 pm (Div. III & IV) and
Thursday: 10 am-10:55 am (Div. I & II) and 3 pm-3:55 pm (Div. III & IV).
• Tutorial: Tuesday (7:55 am-8:50 am)
• There is a class schedule on Tuesday 5 pm to 5:55 pm and is kept as a back up class.
• Mode of teaching: mainly using slides, black boards will be used as and when
necessary.

Tutorials

• Tutorials are for you to interact with the teacher.

• Necessarily held to clear your doubts and answer your queries regarding the course
topic
• A problem sheet will be given after suf cient coverage of the course topics
• You are expected to attempt these problems before you come to tutorials
• The teacher may or may not solve all the problems in the tutorial. If you nd a problem
to be dif cult, please ask the teacher to help.
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Assessments

All questions in the exams will be subjective type with short/or long answers

Events Date % Marks

Quiz 1 4th February 2025 10%
Mid-sem 01 March 2025 30%
Quiz 2 01 April 2025 10%
End-sem 03 May 2025 50%
Syllabus
Vector analysis: Gradient, Divergence and Curl; Line, Surface, and Volume integrals; Gauss's
divergence theorem and Stokes' theorem in Cartesian; Spherical polar and Cylindrical polar
coordinates; Dirac Delta function.
Before
Electrostatics: Gauss's law and its applications, Divergence and Curl of Electrostatic elds, midsem
Electrostatic Potential, Boundary conditions, Work and Energy, Conductors, Capacitors,
Laplace's equation, Method of images, Boundary value problems in Cartesian Coordinate
Systems, Dielectrics, Polarisation, Bound Charges, Electric displacement, Boundary conditions
in dielectrics, Energy in dielectrics, Forces on dielectrics.

Magnetostatics: Lorentz force, Biot-Savart and Ampere's laws and their applications,
Divergence and Curl of Magnetostatic elds, Magnetic vector Potential, Force and torque on a
magnetic dipole, Magnetic materials, Magnetization, Bound currents, Boundary conditions.
After
midsem
Electrodynamics: Ohm's law, Motional EMF, Faraday's law, Lenz's law, Self and Mutual
inductance, Energy stored in magnetic eld, Maxwell's equations, Continuity Equation,
Poynting Theorem, Wave solution of Maxwell Equations.
Electromagnetic waves: Polarization, re ection & transmission at oblique incidences.

IIT Guwahati 5 PH102 (2025)

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Texts and References
The Feynman lectures on Physics,
Introduction to electrodynamics : D. J. Vol II: R. P. Feynman, R. B.
Grif ths, 3rd edition, Prentice Hall of Leighton and M. Sands,
India (2005)
Narosa Publishing House (1998)

http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/

Engineering Electromagnetics : N. Ida,

Optics : A. K. Ghatak, Tata McGraw Springer (2005)
Hill (2007)

Elements of Electromagnetics : M. N. Electromagnetism : I. S. Grant and W.

O. Sadiku, Oxford (2005) R. Phillips, John Wiley (1990)

IIT Guwahati 6 PH102 (2025)

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Introduction: Scalar and Vector Fields
Vectors and Scalars

Vector: Quantities which have direction as well as magnitude

Scalar: Quantities which have no direction but magnitude

Vectors Scalars
Norm of position
Position vector

Force Work

Velocity Temperature

Current Density Charge Density

Momentum Kinetic Energy

Area Volume

Weight Mass

IIT Guwahati 8 PH102 (2025)

 Vector Algebra

An arbitrary vector A can be expanded in terms of basic vectors

z
~ = (Ax , Ay , Az )
• Will sometime use A
to denote a vector
~
A
Az ẑ
Ax x̂ y
x Ay ŷ
~ = Ax x̂ + Ay ŷ + Az ẑ
A
w facts aboutvector
Important the algebra of vectors:
operations
~B
A. ~ = scalar = Ax Bx + Ay By + Az Bz = AB cos ✓
~⇥B
A ~ = vector = AB sin ✓n̂
~ ⇥ B)
(A ~ z = Ax B y Ay B x x̂ ŷ ẑ
~ ⇥ B)
(A ~ x = Ay B z Az B y ~⇥B
A ~ = Ax Ay Az
~ ⇥ B)
(A ~ y = Az B x Ax B z Bx By Bz

IIT Guwahati 9 PH102 (2025)

Vectors Algebra (contd.)

Few more important vector operations

~⇥A
A ~ = 0
~ A
A.( ~ ⇥ B)
~ = 0
~ B
A.( ~ ⇥ C)
~ = ~ ⇥ B).
(A ~ C ~
~ ⇥ (B
A ~ ⇥ C)
~ = ~ (A.
B ~ C)
~ ~ (A.
C ~ B)
~
Triple product
Scalar triple product

Vector triple product BAC-CAB rule

Higher vector products

IIT Guwahati 10 PH102 (2025)

Levi Civita symbol
3
X
~B
A. ~ = Ai Bi also written as ! Ai Bi (Einstein’s summation convention)
i=1
(= A1 B1 + A2 B2 + A3 B3 ) where 1 ! x, 2 ! y, 3 ! z

The cross product can be conveniently described by

introducing a symbol "ijk (Levi Civtia)
3 X
X 3
j, k : dummy indices ~⇥B
~ = Tullio Levi-Civita
A "ijk Aj Bk
i : free index j=1 k=1

where "123 = "231 = "312 = 1 and "132 = "321 = "213 = 1 and all "iij = "iii = 0
1
~ ⇥ B)
(A ~ 1 = "123 A2 B3 + "132 A3 B2 = A2 B3 A3 B 2 3 +
~ ⇥ B)
(A ~ 2 = "231 A3 B1 + "213 A1 B3 = A3 B1 A1 B 3
2
~ ⇥ B)
(A ~ 3 = "312 A1 B2 + "321 A2 B1 = A1 B2 A2 B 1
1
3 -
Helps to simplify cross product calculations.
2
IIT Guwahati 11 PH102 (2025)
Levi Civita: An example

1. "ijk has 3 ⇥ 3 ⇥ 3 = 27 components: 3 components are equal to 1, 3 are equal

to 1 and rest 21 are zero.
2. "ijk "imn = jm kn jn km , where ij = 1 if i = j and 0 if i 6= j.

An example:
Show that ~ B
A.( ~ ⇥ C)
~ = (A
~ ⇥ B).
~ C ~

LHS = Ai "ijk Bj Ck = "ijk Ai Bj Ck

1
By cycling the indices, we get 3 +1

"ijk Ai Bj Ck = "kij Ck Ai Bj = "jki Bj Ck Ai. 2

Hence 1

~ B ~ ⇥ C)
~ = C.(
~ A ~ ⇥ B)
~ = B.(
~ C ~ ⇥ A)
~ 3 -1
A.(
2

IIT Guwahati 12 PH102 (2025)

Vector transformation

Components of a vector has to transform “properly” under a coordinate change.

Suppose x̄, ȳ, z̄ coordinate system is rotated by z
angle relative to x, y, z about a common z̄ Ay
axis x = x̄ which is perpendicular to the page. Ā y
Ā z
~
A Az ȳ
Ay = A cos ✓, Az = A sin ✓ ¯
✓
✓
y
Āy = A cos ✓¯ = A cos(✓ ) = A(cos ✓ cos + sin ✓ sin ) = cos Ay + sin Az
Āz = A sin ✓¯ = A sin(✓ ) = A(sin ✓ cos cos ✓ sin ) = sin Ay + cos Az

✓ ◆ ✓ ◆✓ ◆
A¯y cos sin Ay
In a compact form =
A¯z sin cos Az
A scalar remains invariant
In general, for rotation about arbitrary axis in 3-D under a change in coord.
0 1 0 10 1 system
¯
Ax Rxx Rxy Rxz Ax X3
@A¯y A = @Ryx Ryy Ryz A @Ay A=) Āi = Rij Aj
A¯z Rzx Rzy Rzz Az j=1

A vector is any set of 3 components that has the above transformation property

IIT Guwahati PH102 (2025)

Concept of a eld
Field is physical quantity (scalar or a vector) that has a value at each point in space or time.

Scalar eld:
We can associate a number at each and every point in space.

Example: We can associate a temperature (a number) at every

point in this room. The eld is the temperature eld and it is a
scalar eld because the eld quantity “temperature” is a
scalar. Similarly density, potential energy etc…

Vector eld:
We can associate a vector at each and every point in space.

Example: Gravitational force eld, electric & magnetic eld,

ocean current etc…

IIT Guwahati 14 PH102 (2025)

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Scalar Fields: How to “see” them?
Imagine “contours” which are imaginary surfaces drawn through all points for which the eld has
the same value: level surfaces (in 3 D)/level curves (in 2 D). For a temperature eld these are
called “isothermal surfaces” or isotherms.
T(x,y) T (x, y) = x2 + y 2

Isotherms

y x
!
Q 1 1
V (x, y) = p +p
4⇡✏0 (x 1)2 + y2 (x + 1)2 + y 2

Potential due to 2
identical point charges
at (1,0,0) and (-1,0,0)

Equipotentials

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Differential Calculus of the scalar eld
We already know the definition of ordinary derivative of a function f (x) of a
single variable x

df (x) f (x + x) f (x)
= lim
dx x!0 x

Tells us how rapidly the function f (x) varies when we change the argument x
by a tiny amount x.
f
f
12
0.2

10
0.1

8
x
2 4 6 8 10 12

6
-0.1

4
x
-0.2 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0

The function varies slowly with x The function varies rapidly with x
The derivative is small The derivative is large

Derivative df /dx is the slope of the function.

IIT Guwahati 16 PH102 (2025)
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Differential Calculus of the scalar eld
What happens in higher dimensions? i.e. if the scalar eld is function of more variables?

Suppose we have a scalar eld T(x,y,z) describing a temperature eld and we want to know how
the temperature at one place is related to the temperature at a nearby place.

How does T vary with position? Caution: T now depends on 3 variables x, y and z!

Do we differentiate T with respect to x? Or with respect to y, or z?

Remember: Useful physical laws do not depend upon the orientation of the coordinate
system. Therefore the laws should be written in a form in which either both sides are
scalars or both are vectors!

What is the derivative of a scalar field, say @T /@x? Is it a scalar, or a vector?

! It is neither. Because if you took a di↵erent x-axis, @T /@x would certainly

be di↵erent.

IIT Guwahati PH102 (2025)

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The Gradient
Suppose we have a function of three variables, say the temperature,
Notice: since T = T (x, y, z), we have three p
And recall: it takes three numbers to form
T depends upon three variables and therefore the concept of derivation that depends upon three
variable has to be generalised.

Think about the temperature eld at P1 and P2 separated by ~

R

T = T2 T1 ! Scalar

y In certain coord. system T1 = T (x, y, z) and

T2 = T (x + x, y + y, z + z).

z x, y, & z are components of the vector ~

R.
P2 y
R
P1 @T @T @T
x T = x+ y+ z
@x @y @z

x (Theorem on ”partial derivatives”: true in the limit

x, y, z tends to zero)
z

IIT Guwahati 18 PH102 (2025)

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The Gradient
@T @T @T
y T = x+ y+ z
@x @y @z

z
y Scalar Components of vector ~
R
P2
R
P1
x Must be x, y, z component
of another vector

x ✓ ◆
@T @T @T
T = x̂ + ŷ + ẑ .( xx̂ + y ŷ + z ẑ)
z @x @y @z
~
T = rT. ~
R

We call this new vector Gradient of T (or ”del-T ”, or ”grad-T ”). The symbol
~ (called ”del”) is supposed to remind us of di↵erentiation!
r
Important: The quantity rT~ is a vector.
~
T = rT. ~
R says that the di↵erence in temperature between two nearby
points is the dot product of the gradient of T and the vector
displacement between the points.
IIT Guwahati PH102 (2025)
The Gradient: Geometrical interpretation
~
T = rT. ~ || R|
~ = |rT
R ~ cos ✓ ~ and
✓ is the angle between rT ~
R.

~ and search around in various directions (i.e. vary ✓),

If we fix magnitude | R|
the maximum change in T occurs when ✓ = 0 (i.e. cos ✓ = 1).
~
i.e. for a fixed distance | R|, T is greatest when you move in the same
~ .
direction as rT
~ points in the direction of maximum increase of the scalar
The gradient rT
function T .
~ | gives the slope (rate of change of T (x, y, z)) along this
The magnitude |rT
maximal direction.

~ = 0 at a point (x, y, z) =) maximum or minimum or saddle point.

rT

Saddle point

Analogous to the situation for functions of one variable!

IIT Guwahati PH102 (2025)

The Gradient: Geometrical meaning
Gradient of a scalar function T is always normal to the level surfaces or level
curves.
Level curve : parametrised by a variable t, which varies from point to point
on the curve. Example of such a parameter for the circle is angle ✓, so that
x = R cos ✓, y = R sin ✓, where R (fixed) is the radius and 0 < ✓ < 2⇡ is the
polar angle.
Position vector on the level curve ~r(t) = x(t)x̂ + y(t)ŷ + 0ẑ

dT
Equation of the level curve T (x(t), y(t), z(t) = 0) = constant =) dt =0

dx dy
Tangent to the curve ~r 0 = dt x̂ + dt ŷ + 0ẑ

dT @T dx @T dy ~
rT
= + ~ r0=0
= rT.~
dt @x dt @y dt

Which shows that the gradient is normal to the level curve.

IIT Guwahati 21 PH102 (2025)

Example:
Suppose the height of the hill (in feet) behind the CC is h(x, y) = 10(2xy
3x2 4y 2 18x + 28y + 12), where y is the distance (in miles) north, x the
distance west of the IITG admin. building Where is the top of the hill and how
high is the hill? How steep is the slope 1 mile north and 1 mile west of admin building?

~ @h @h
rh(x, y) = x̂ + ŷ
@x @y
= 10(2y 6x 18)x̂ + 10(2x 8y + 28)ŷ
~ (x̄,ȳ) = 0
If the hilltop is located at (x̄, ȳ), then rh|
(condition for maxima)

2ȳ 6x̄ 18 = 0
This gives =) x̄ = 2 and ȳ = 3
2x̄ 8ȳ + 28 = 0.
The hill top is 3 miles north and 2 miles east of the admin building.
Height h( 2, 3) = 720 feet.

The slope at a point 1 mile west and 1 mile north of admin building will be
~
rh(x,
found from the magnitude of p ~
y) at x = 1, y = 1, which gives rh(1, 1) =
220( x̂ + ŷ). Slope =) 220 2 ft/mile.
IIT Guwahati 22 PH102 (2025)
Thank You