Introduction to Electromagnetism and

Its Application to Materials Science:

Chapter 2

Seungbum Hong

Materials Imaging and Integration Lab.

Dept. of Materials Science & Engineering
Understanding physics
 The physicist needs a facility in looking at problems from
several points of view.
 Exact analysis of real physical problems is quite
complex, and any particular physical situation may be too
complicated to analyze directly by solving the differential
equation.
 However, one can still get a very good idea of the
behavior of a system if one has some feel for the
character of the solution in different circumstances.
 There is only one precise way of presenting the laws,
and that is by means of differential equations.
 Dirac said, “I understand what an equation means if I
have a way of figuring out the characteristics of its
solution without actually solving it.”
 Our approach: Take first the complete laws, and then
step back and apply them to simple situations,
developing the physical ideas as we go along. 2
 Scalar and vector fields - T and h
 Ultimate goal: to explain the meaning of the laws of
electrodynamics
 Approach: via the mathematics of vector fields

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_product

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 Two important equalities from the calculus

when x, y, z  0

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 Field: a quantity which depends upon position in space
– Scalar field: a field characterized at each point by a
single number - a scalar (ex: temperature)
• Imagine “contours” which are imaginary surfaces
drawn through all points for which the field has the
same value (ex: isotherms)

Source:
http://weather.cnn.com
/weather/forecast.jsp

– Vector field: a field characterized at each point by a

vector that varies from point to point (ex: heat flow)

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 Heat flow, h: a vector, which points in the direction of
flow and has a magnitude equal to the amount of
thermal energy that passes, per unit time and per unit
area, through an infinitesimal surface element at right
angles to the direction of flow.

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 Heat flow, h: a vector, which points in the direction of flow
and has a magnitude equal to the amount of thermal
energy that passes, per unit time and per unit area,
through an infinitesimal surface element at right angles to
the direction of flow.

Where J is the thermal energy that passes per unit time

through the surface element a and ef is a unit vector in
the direction of flow.

 The heat flow (per unit time and

per unit area) through any
surface element whose unit
normal is n, is given by hn. 7
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Derivatives of fields - the gradient
 How shall we take the derivative of the temperature with
respect to position?
 T/x? neither scalar nor vector because it takes different
values for different x-axes.
– Scalar and vector are invariant upon the choice of the
coordinates.
 It is true only if, when we rotate the coordinate system, the
components of the vector transform among themselves in
the correct way.
 Ask a question whose answer is independent of the
coordinate system, and try to express the answer in an
“invariant” form.
– Example: if , and if A and B are vectors, S is a
scalar. Likewise, if A is a vector, S a scalar and there
are three numbers B1, B2, and B3 that satisfy the
relationship , then B1, B2, B3 are the
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components B , B , B of some vector B.
 Prove

 T=T2-T1= a scalar (invariant upon the choice of the

coordinates), when T1 and T2 are temperatures at P1 and
P2, separated by the small interval R = (x, y, z).

T2=T(x+x, y+y, z+z)

when x, y, z  0

T1=T(x,y,z)

when x, y, z  0

 Since R = (x, y, z) is a vector and T a scalar, it
turns out that

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  T = gradient of T = del-T

 The equation says that the difference in temperature

between two nearby points is the dot product of the
gradient of T and the vector displacement between the
points.

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 Prove in a different way.

 We shall show that the components of T transform in

just the same way that components of R do under a
rotation of the coordinate system.

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 Let’s take P1=(x,y,z) and P2=(x+x,y,z), then

0 0
 In a prime system, P1=(x’,y’,z’)
and P2=(x’+x’,y+y’,z’), and

 Comparing two equations above, we

see that vs
 T is definitely a vector field derived from the scalar field
T.
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 The operator 
 Operator equation without a scalar field

 Vector operator (hungry for something to differentiate)

  is an operator, and it means nothing by itself.

  follows most of the ordinary vector algebra, but some
exceptions exist.
vs The order is important!
 T has the direction of the
steepest uphill in slope in T. When is T the maximum?

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 Operations with 
 Combine  with a vector.

A scalar field
We think of h as a physical quantity that depends on
position in space, and not strictly as a mathematical
function of three variables.
 h = div h = “divergence of h”
y
 h = curl h = “curl of h”
x z

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 Maxwell’s Equations (in vector equations)

(rho): “electric charge density”

j: “electric current density” 17
 The differential equation of heat flow
 Heat flow in a slab

Where J: thermal energy that passes

per unit time through the slab,
(kappa): thermal conductivity
A: area of the faces
d: distance between the plates
 Heat flow in an arbitrary shape 
consider a slab on a miniature scale

 It is the generalization to arbitrary cases

of the special relation for rectangular
slabs.
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Second derivatives of vector fields
 Why not second derivatives?

All possible combinations

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 (curl(gradT)) for any scalar function

 div (curl h)

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 Two useful theorems
– Theorem 1: If the curl A is zero, then A is always the
gradient of somethingthere is some scalar field 
(psi) such that A is equal to grad .

If
there is a
such that

– Theorem 2: If you come across a vector field D for

which div D is zero, then you can conclude that D is
the curl of some vector field C.

If
there is a
such that
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 The Laplacian 2: a scalar operator

 The Laplacian 2 on a vector

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 Curl of Curl…

Wrong order!!

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 Summary of second derivatives
All possible combinations

A scalar field

A vector field (nothing

special)

A vector field

Do you see why we haven’t tried to invent a new

vector operator ()?

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Pitfalls

 Be careful when applying our knowledge of ordinary

vector algebra to the algebra of the operator .

vs
The two operators  are not equal, because the first one
operates on one function,; the other operates on a
different function, .
 The rules are simple and nice when we use rectangular
coordinates, however it gets complicated if we change to
cylindrical or spherical coordinates. So we shall express
all of our vector fields in terms of their x-, y-, and z-
components when we write our vector differential
equations out in components.

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