Reddit reviews A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations (Student's Guides)

a student's guide to maxwell's equations

http://www.amazon.com/Students-Guide-Maxwells-Equations/dp/0521701473

I've had a few colleagues recommend A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations.

Differential forms as they build up to the general Stokes theorem are extremely satisfying because they give you the full picture of multivariable integration generalized to arbitrary k-dimensional objects in n-dimensional spaces. They basically relieve you of that feeling you (maybe) had in calc 3 that there's got to be more to the story than greene's theorem and stokes theorem.

However, I don't know that they give you better intuition for vector calculus and maxwell's equations, eg stuff in R^3. The way I got intuition for those was by doing problems and going through the proofs of curl and divergence from their definitions as limits of integrals. Work through the proof that this is equivalent to the usual definition of curl, and you'll understand curl and stokes theorem. Do the same for divergence

For maxwell's equations, this is an excellent book for intuition.

Optics takes a fair amount of math. If you want to read something useful, I recommend:

• All the Mathematics You Missed But Need to Know for Graduate School
  
  
• A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations

http://www.amazon.co.uk/A-Students-Guide-Maxwells-Equations/dp/0521701473

This book is very short and explains it all from the bottom up. I'd definitely recommend if you're new to Electromagnetism and/or haven't really studied vector calculus.

I agree with brushing up on your math. EM requires good mathematical intuition as you need to visualize both electric and magnetic field lines. I strong understanding of vector calculus helps with this immensely.

That said: I've heard great things about A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations. Note you'll probably be learning things other than just Maxwell's Equations however, such as transmission lines.

I'm preparing to go from a pure maths/stats background to an applied maths graduate program in the fall, and I bought both of these books:

1. Div, Grad, Curl, and All That: An Informal Text on Vector Calculus, by H.M. Schey, and
   
2. A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations, by Daniel Fleisch.
   
   Hoping they'll help me when I get home to read them, maybe they'll help you too? The Amazon feedback seems pretty positive. Good luck!

For when you get into Electricity and Magnetism - This

Ah but did your tour have a guide?

I didn't full understand the material that well when I was in school but I wanted to learn it better after school. I, like you, tried to find something to supplement my existing texting books. I came across the A student's guide to maxwell equations and I began to understand more. It's a small book and what the author does is break down what the equation means. One chapter might be just on what does the surface integral mean.. Or another chapter might be on just the E vector. I found breaking it down to be more understandable than trying to take the entire equation(s) in together.

No, I am not familiar with vector calculus. Do I need a lot of background before I can try to learn that or is it okay to jump right in? I know there are a lot of gradients and that is something I hadn't seen before.

I was also looking at getting this.

Available free as well:

https://www.amazon.com/Students-Guide-Maxwells-Equations/dp/0521701473