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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.
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 ...
Curvature of spacetime affects electrodynamics. An electromagnetic field having energy and momentum also generates curvature in spacetime. Maxwell's equations in curved spacetime can be obtained by replacing the derivatives in the equations in flat spacetime with covariant derivatives. (Whether this is the appropriate generalization requires ...
The third of Maxwell's equations is called the Ampère–Maxwell law. It states that a magnetic field can be generated by an electric current. [13] The direction of the magnetic field is given by Ampère's right-hand grip rule. If the wire is straight, then the magnetic field is curled around it like the gripped fingers in the right-hand rule.
These equations can be viewed as a generalization of the vacuum Maxwell's equations which are normally formulated in the local coordinates of flat spacetime. But because general relativity dictates that the presence of electromagnetic fields (or energy / matter in general) induce curvature in spacetime, [ 1 ] Maxwell's equations in flat ...
These tensor equations are manifestly covariant, meaning they can be seen to be covariant by the index positions. This short form of Maxwell's equations illustrates an idea shared amongst some physicists, namely that the laws of physics take on a simpler form when written using tensors. By lowering the indices on F αβ to obtain F αβ:
Because of the linearity of Maxwell's equations in a vacuum, solutions can be decomposed into a superposition of sinusoids. This is the basis for the Fourier transform method for the solution of differential equations. The sinusoidal solution to the electromagnetic wave equation takes the form
This tensor simplifies and reduces Maxwell's equations as four vector calculus equations into two tensor field equations. In electrostatics and electrodynamics, Gauss's law and Ampère's circuital law are respectively: