Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Delaware, 311 Dupont Hall, Newark, 19716 USA
Abstract :
This book has its genesis in the author??s wildly popular (and oft-downloaded) papers, ??An Elementary View of Maxwell??s Displacement Current?? and ??The Fundamentals of Electromagnetic Theory Revisited,?? published in this Magazine in February 2008 and November 2009, respectively. In these works, Dr. Arthur discussed the many misunderstandings that arise in the standard presentation of electromagnetic theory, which uses Oliver Heaviside??s now-familiar notation for Maxwell??s equations based on Josiah Willard Gibbs??s vector notation. In particular, that work lamented the common depiction of magnetic quantities B and H, including their relationship with one another, their nature as fundamental or derived fields, and their importance for the theory of special relativity.