Electrodynamics (Chicago Lectures in Physics)

Practically all of modern physics deals with fields—functions of space (or spacetime) that give the value of a certain quantity, such as the temperature, in terms of its location within a prescribed volume. Electrodynamics is a comprehensive study of the field produced by (and interacting with) charged particles, which in practice means almost all matter. Fulvio Melia's __Electrodynamics__ offers a concise, compact, yet complete treatment of this important branch of physics. Unlike most of the standard texts, __Electrodynamics__ neither assumes familiarity with basic concepts nor ends before reaching advanced theoretical principles. Instead this book takes a continuous approach, leading the reader from fundamental physical principles through to a relativistic Lagrangian formalism that overlaps with the field theoretic techniques used in other branches of advanced physics. Avoiding unnecessary technical details and calculations, __Electrodynamics__ will serve both as a useful supplemental text for graduate and advanced undergraduate students and as a helpful overview for physicists who specialize in other fields.