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The term "Maxwell's equations" is often also used for equivalent alternative formulations. Versions of Maxwell's equations based on the electric and magnetic scalar potentials are preferred for explicitly solving the equations as a boundary value problem, analytical mechanics, or for use in quantum mechanics.
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]
Using the Maxwell equations, one can see that the electromagnetic stress–energy tensor (defined above) satisfies the following differential equation, relating it to the electromagnetic tensor and the current four-vector , + = or , + =, which expresses the conservation of linear momentum and energy by electromagnetic interactions.
The four modern Maxwell's equations, as laid down in a publication by Oliver Heaviside in 1884, had all appeared in Maxwell's 1861 paper. Heaviside however presented these equations in modern vector format using the nabla operator (∇) devised by William Rowan Hamilton in 1837, [citation needed] Of Maxwell's work, Albert Einstein wrote: [4]
[24] [25] Maxwell deals with the motion-related aspect of electromagnetic induction, v × B, in equation (77), which is the same as equation (D) in Maxwell's original equations as listed below. It is expressed today as the force law equation, F = q ( E + v × B ) , which sits adjacent to Maxwell's equations and bears the name Lorentz force ...
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 ...
The electric field E and magnetic field B of Maxwell's equations contain only "physical" degrees of freedom, in the sense that every mathematical degree of freedom in an electromagnetic field configuration has a separately measurable effect on the motions of test charges in the vicinity.
All but the last term of can be written as the tensor divergence of the Maxwell stress tensor, giving: = +, As in the Poynting's theorem, the second term on the right side of the above equation can be interpreted as the time derivative of the EM field's momentum density, while the first term is the time derivative of the momentum density for ...