Higher Year Physics Studies with a Shaky Foundation

[CDL]

I have just finished my first semester of third year undergraduate physics, and have a 3-4 week break before my next semester, in which I will be taking a third course in electromagnetism (classical electrodynamics). It is my second course with a full focus on electromagnetism, since in first year there were other topics included.

I have a shaky foundation in the topic, as in first year I was not very studious and involved. In my next year I picked my socks up, but did not manage to learn too much from the second exposition to electromagnetism, apart from electrostatics and some basic situations involving magnetic fields. The rest was quite superficial.

The topics in the upcoming course include: Scalar diffraction theory. Image formation and Fourier Optics, Coherence. Electromagnetic fields in dispersive media. Scattering. Maxwell’s equations potential formulation. Gauge transformation. Poynting’s theorem, conservation laws. Green’s function solution of static problems. Inhomogeneous wave equation and Green’s function solution. Dipole radiation. Emission of radiation from accelerating and decelerating charges. Relativistic electrodynamics. Covariant formulation,

which sound a little scary given my background in the subject. I am wondering if anyone has advice for me to get up to speed, while solidifying my understanding of the basics. Any resources or methods for doing so given the time frame would be much appreciated.

I have Griffiths' Introduction to Electrodynamics, and have looked a bit at MIT's lectures. They look pretty good. This site looks good too: http://www.maxwells-equations.com/

 

[Wrichik Basu]

You can have a look at http://www.nptel.ac.in/courses/115104088/ by Prof. Manoj Harbola. The lectures are present in the video gallery of PF as well. If you go through the full course, you will have a better grip on the basics. The syllabus of the course is given http://www.nptel.ac.in/syllabus/syllabus.php?subjectId=115104088.

It will become difficult for you to study higher topics without learning the basics. I think the lectures will be helpful to you to some extent, but I'll ask you to go through the syllabus linked above to see if it will actually help you.

 

[jedishrfu]

Nice, thanks for posting in the video section.