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Maxwell's equations on a plaque on his statue in Edinburgh. Maxwell's equations, or Maxwell–Heaviside equations, are a set of coupled partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electromagnetism, classical optics, electric and magnetic circuits.
In fact, Maxwell's equations were crucial in the historical development of special relativity. However, in the usual formulation of Maxwell's equations, their consistency with special relativity is not obvious; it can only be proven by a laborious calculation. For example, consider a conductor moving in the field of a magnet. [8]
Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism describes the interaction of charged matter with the electromagnetic field. The first formulation of this field theory used vector fields to describe the electric and magnetic fields. With the advent of special relativity, a more complete formulation using tensor fields was found. Instead of using two vector ...
Combination of spatial and temporal variables in Maxwell's theory required admission of a four-manifold. Finite light speed and other constant motion lines were described with analytic geometry . Orthogonality of electric and magnetic vector fields in space was extended by hyperbolic orthogonality for the temporal factor.
The covariant formulation of classical electromagnetism refers to ways of writing the laws of classical electromagnetism (in particular, Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz force) in a form that is manifestly invariant under Lorentz transformations, in the formalism of special relativity using rectilinear inertial coordinate systems.
There are two main descriptions of motion: dynamics and kinematics.Dynamics is general, since the momenta, forces and energy of the particles are taken into account. In this instance, sometimes the term dynamics refers to the differential equations that the system satisfies (e.g., Newton's second law or Euler–Lagrange equations), and sometimes to the solutions to those equations.
Relativity takes the Lorentz transformation of space-time suggested by invariance of Maxwell's equations and imposes it upon dynamics as well (a revision of Newton's laws of motion). In this example, the Lorentz transformation affects the x-direction only (the relative motion of the two frames is along the x-direction).
Eighteen of Maxwell's twenty original equations can be vectorized into six equations, labeled to below, each of which represents a group of three original equations in component form. The 19th and 20th of Maxwell's component equations appear as and below, making a total of eight vector equations. These are listed below in Maxwell's original ...