Axiomatic Reformulation of Maxwells Theory of Electromagnetism

Axiomatic Reformulation of Maxwells Theory of Electromagnetism

R. ANNOU
(1989/1990)

. 1. Introduction The laws of electricity and magnetism were developed on the basis of observations and experimental facts, and were not derived from conservation principles in the framework of a general theory. Indeed, the electrical effect was observed during the eighteenth century (1700) by some pioneers such as Lord Kelvin, Coulomb, Volta, Cavendish, etc., by way of numerous experiments. It has been observed that matter possesses the ability of attracting shreds of a sheet of paper after rubbing that matter (a rod of glass or resin) against the skin. This characteristic quality is represented by a physical quantity called--- the electric charge. Similarly, mass is representing the attribute of inertia. On the other hand, the magnetic effect was already known. However, the relation between the electric current and magnetism was not established until discovered by H.C. Oersted in 1820. Later on, A. Ampre, M. Faraday, and J. Henry studied thoroughly the magnetic effect. Finally, J. C. Maxwell found the missing piece in the puzzle, namely, the displacement current and succeeded in building a self-consistent, compact and powerful theory of electromagnetism. In this short note we shall prove that Maxwell equations can be deduced from an axiomatic based on simple and general axioms. . 2. Axiomatic First axiom The electric charge (Q) is conserved. Second axiom The electric charge (Q) acts on the space and influences other charges put in this space. Third axiom The energy is conserved.

. 3. Mathematical interpretation of the axiomatic 1/ Let be a tube; the first axiom means that the amount of electric charge getting out of the tube is equal to the amount of electric charge getting in. Let be the current density vector given by,

Axiomatic Reformulation of Maxwells Theory of Electromagnetism

, where, is the charge density and is the charge velocity. Hence, the charge conservation may be expressed through the following equation, (1)

2/ a. The charge acts on the space, means that the charge exhibits a certain entity that can be defined in all the space. This influence on the space is directional so one may choose that entity to be a vectorial field , the flux of which through a bounded surface surrounding the charge Q, measures the later. Therefore, the mathematical formulation of the axiom is given by, where, is a unit-system dependent constant. It is in cgs system. (2)

The local form is given by, (3)

b. Influences other charges put in this space means, if we put a test charge q in the space of Q, the latter will influence the movement of the former by a force , which depends on q and Q, consequently on q and . It is written then as follows, The simplest form would be linear,

It is to be stressed, that the above equation has been deduced by way of simple arguments. 3/ In a definite volume V, the variation of the field energy is due to two facts, the field yields energy to matter, or, the field loses energy by radiation through the surface enclosing volume V. Let u be the energy density and the flux of energy. So the loss of energy is given by,

(work given to matter per time unit),

(4)

The work per unit time that is power is given for N particles per unit volume by Power = . Hence, the energy equation may be rewritten as, ( ) (5)

Axiomatic Reformulation of Maxwells Theory of Electromagnetism

Or in the local form, , (6)

Finally, we got the following set of equations,

From Eqs. (1) and (3), we get, (

(7)

Hence it does exist a vector the curl of which is given by,

(8)

We may choose to write,

to comply with the notations already used for the magnetic field in the electromagnetism theory. Hence the existence of a physical quantity called the electric charge gives ultimately rise to what we know as magnetism. It is to be noticed also that the displacement current appears automatically in the equation, as a logical consequence of the above mentioned axioms. We need not to invoke any argument to introduce it, the way it is being done so far. Let us implement the axiomatic by proposing a form to and influences the surrounding through the fields and , hence, The simplest form would be, and, (10) (9) and, . The electric charge Q

Axiomatic Reformulation of Maxwells Theory of Electromagnetism

By using the identity, Eq. (6) the following relation, [ ( ) ]

, one finds after putting Eqs. (9,10) in

(11)

where, we chose to retrieve Maxwell equations. It should be kept in mind that the set of solutions of the equations derived by the following approach is wider as the solutions of Maxwell equations constitute only a sub-set of it; especially that we consider only the solutions satisfying the following equation, ( ) or, ( ) (13) (12)

By applying the divergence (multiply by the gradient) on the two sides of Eq.(13), one finds, ( ) (14)

Equation (14) may be rewritten consequently as, (15)

has the form of a magnetic charge density corresponding to magnetic monopoles. It is important to notice that the present approach does not reject the existence of magnetic monopoles, in which case the current density vector ought to be conservative ( . However, if we want to follow the track of Maxwells theory of electromagnetism we need to recall that it should exist a time (in the past) where vanishes, and then, . 4. Conclusion To conclude, we recall that by way of general considerations (basic principles), namely, the conservation of charge and energy, we could derive Maxwells equations, ( ) . (16)