We start up our winter quarter after a long break. There will be a reading assignment over the break, and we’ll begin the quarter assuming you have completed it. Here’s a list of our winter quarter texts. As some of you may not have access to the texts over the break, here are password protected copies of the first chapters of our EM and LA texts (these links will be disabled once you’ve all had a chance to get your own copies of the texts).

• Griffiths Chapter 1, (the entire chapter)
• Lay Chapter 1, (the whole chapter, but just skimming section 1.6 and skipping section 1.10)
• Please note that the Griffiths chapter is from the 3rd edition and the Lay chapter from the 4th edition, so each comes from the immediately previous edition to the one we’ll be using. However, the content is essentially identical to the current editions.

We’ll be covering and completing both of these chapters in the first week of the quarter.

• For Griffiths Chapter 1:
  • I expect that sections 1.1 – 1.4 should be review of MVC material from fall quarter and that you are familiar (if not expert) with it. There will be some notation differences. Use your MVC text and notes along with Div, Grad, Curl to solidify anything from those sections that you are uncertain about.
  • My current plan is that the first day quiz (yes, I am planning to have a quiz on the first day) will come from this material on the first day, we will rapidly cover the material from sections 1.1 – 1.4, so come prepared having read these sections and with questions.
  • I do not expect that the material in sections 1.5 and 1.6 will be familiar to you, though I do think you will find them interesting.
  • I imagine that we will spend most of our time in the first week on sections 1.5 – 1.6, as well as reviewing what you need from sections 1.1 – 1.4.
• For Lay Chapter 1:
  • I expect that there will be a great deal of important new terminology and notation in sections 1.1 – 1.5, but little that is conceptually brand new (but please do bring to my attention what you’d like us to spend class time on from this material).
  • My current plan is that the first day quiz (yes, I am planning to have a quiz on the first day) will come from this material.
  • I anticipate that we will spend the bulk of our time in the first week on the interesting material sections 1.7 – 1.9, as well as covering what you ask about from earlier in the chapter.