Exercise on chapter 12

1. Suppose in an inertial frame S there is a uniform electric field E E0 z , but no magnetic

field, B 0 . What are the fields in the S frame that moves with velocity v v x with
respect to S?
2. *** What does an electromagnetic wave look like in a moving frame of reference? More
precisely, consider a plane wave traveling in the x-direction and polarized in the z-
direction:

E ( x , t ) E0 cos(kx wt ) z,
E0
B( x , t ) cos(kx wt ) y
c
What are the fields observed in a frame S that moves with velocity v v x with respect to
S? Hint: Before you start looking for the transformed fields, find expressions for k and w in
the S frame ( i. e., first transform the coordinates, x and t from S to S, and then find the new
expressions for k and w in S). Note that the dispersion relation between w and k is w = ck.