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List of electromagnetism equations; List of equations in classical mechanics; List of equations in gravitation; List of equations in nuclear and particle physics; List of equations in quantum mechanics; List of equations in wave theory; List of relativistic equations
[note 1] The equations are named after the physicist and mathematician James Clerk Maxwell, who, in 1861 and 1862, published an early form of the equations that included the Lorentz force law. Maxwell first used the equations to propose that light is an electromagnetic phenomenon.
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant that is exactly equal to 299,792,458 metres per second (approximately 300,000 kilometres per second; 186,000 miles per second; 671 million miles per hour).
Localized time-varying charge and current densities can act as sources of electromagnetic waves in a vacuum. Maxwell's equations can be written in the form of a wave equation with sources. The addition of sources to the wave equations makes the partial differential equations inhomogeneous.
Snell's law (also known as the Snell–Descartes law, the ibn-Sahl law, [1] and the law of refraction) is a formula used to describe the relationship between the angles of incidence and refraction, when referring to light or other waves passing through a boundary between two different isotropic media, such as water, glass, or air.
Light exerts physical pressure on objects in its path, a phenomenon which can be deduced by Maxwell's equations, but can be more easily explained by the particle nature of light: photons strike and transfer their momentum. Light pressure is equal to the power of the light beam divided by c, the speed of light.
To derive the equations of special relativity, one must start with two other The laws of physics are invariant under transformations between inertial frames. In other words, the laws of physics will be the same whether you are testing them in a frame 'at rest', or a frame moving with a constant velocity relative to the 'rest' frame.
In physics, there are equations in every field to relate physical quantities to each other and perform calculations. Entire handbooks of equations can only summarize most of the full subject, else are highly specialized within a certain field. Physics is derived of formulae only.