Matter & Interactions II: Electric and Magnetic Interactions

I like this book a lot as a lowed division physics introduction to electromagnetics. It's quite unique due to the interactive work that the reader is asked to do & to the thoroughness & "spoon feeding" of the subject material. It's clear that a lot of work & careful thought went into the writing of the book which results in a great starter text in what can be a rather difficult subject. Apparently written by physicists to be used in a physical sciences curriculum, I'm sure anyone majoring in physics would be well served by this work. Speaking from the EE prospective, often it seems the required lower division physics classes include Newton's laws, machines, fluids, gases, heat & light, but a disproportionate small amount of fundamental electrical theory involving the electric & magnetic characteristic of matter. And when they do accent the electrical component, it usually includes delving into circuit analysis & design, which may not be the best way to spend a limited amount of time. This book, as is stated in the preface "focuses on electric & magnetic interactions on the structure of mater". This is exactly what the EE needs so when they start their EE classes with Ohm's Law, they'll know where it came from. This book works through (with very little math) electric fields, forces & currents in matter, Coulomb' law, electric potential, what is voltage, Gauss's law, magnetic fields, forces & induction, Biot-Savart law, Faraday's law, inductors/capacitors & electromagnetic radiation including a integral set of Maxwell's equations. This is done while always relating back to what really going on inside the conductor regarding to the basic electric & magnetic fields. Be aware, you are not likely to find a clean transition from this work into your upper division electromagnetic classes. The primary reason for this is the lack of math used here. Also this is a notorious subject for authors using "creative license" to attempt to present their work in a somewhat different form. And in some cases, even renaming classic equations & laws. So if you have been through your calculus including vector analysis & are comfortable with dot/cross products, divergence, gradient, curl, Laplacian, different coordinate systems & the differential form of Maxwell's equations, you may not need this book. But if not, use this work to get clear on the basic interaction of the electric & magnetic fields with mater & don't worry too much about the math now. But be aware, you'll see all this again in quite a different format, and maybe you'll have a better basic understand of what's going on in the circuits.

This book has the best theoretical explainations for almost everytin regarding current, charge and magnetism. It goes to the very deep of what happens inside the wire when current flows throug it. U should have it !