References: (LPE available)

2302-PYL101

Electromagnetism and Quantum Mechanics

Lecture-1: Introduction

By: Aditya Narain Agnihotri

From 12th standard physics books,
you are already familiar with the concept of
electric charges, electric fields, force etc…
Here,

I. We would have a re-look at these concepts.

II. We will develop a deeper understanding

about how these concepts were developed.

III. Their applications in different real-world

situations.
Electric charges at rest have been known much
longer than electric currents.

The amber effect

The property now called ‘static electricity’
was known to the philosophers of ancient Greece.

The work ‘electricity’ comes from ‘elekrton’ which

is the Greek name for amber.
Amber is a resinous
material used to
make
jewellery.
It is probable that small fibres of clothing
clung to amber jewels and were quite
difficult to remove.

Trying to rub the fibres off made the

situation worse, causing early
philosophers to wonder why.
William Gilbert mentioned the
“amber effect” in his ground-breaking
book on Magnetism, published in 1600.

He noticed that the attraction between

“electrics” was much weaker than
magnetism and wrongly said that electrics
never repelled.
Benjamin Franklin:
18th Century (2300 years after
Thales)

Franklin was an advocate of a

‘single fluid’ model of electric
charge.
Benjamin Franklin:
18th Century
Franklin was an advocate of a
‘single fluid’ model of electric
charge.
Other scientists had advocated
a ‘two fluid’ theory, with
separate positive and negative
fluids moving around.
 Leyden Jar
It took over a century for
the debate to come down
on Franklin’s side.
Franklin coined several
electrical terms which we
still use today:
battery, charge, conductor, plus, minus,
positively, negatively, condenser (= capacitor),
among others.
We already know that there are two
types of charges

I. Positive (+)
II. Negative (-)

This nomenclature is, however, for our

own convenience
 The idea behind such nomenclature?

A charged object exerts force on the other

charged objects…
but
some objects are attracted (pulled) while
some are repelled (pushed).
If two electrically charged bodies A and B,
some distance apart, attract each other,
and
if A attracts some third electrified body C,
then
we always find that B repels C.
 Intriguing facts about electrical charges

I. Charge is conserved
II. Charge is quantized

Again, you already know these facts but…

How do we know these facts?
How certain we are about these facts?

Let us look at these facts more carefully…

I. Charge is conserved

“The total electric charge in an isolated

system, that is, the algebraic sum of
Positive and negative charges present at
Any time, never changes”
The conservation of charges as stated
here is supported by all the
experiments/observations made so far.

It can be considered a hypothesis or

‘Empirical law’
II. Charge is quantized

We have been told that, in natural

events, the electric charges are found in
units of ‘e’ where ‘e’ is the ‘magnitude’
of the charge carried by a single
electron.
The apparent neutrality of atoms and
Molecules also indicate towards this
fact.

The charge carried by a proton is ‘+ ive’

But equal in magnitude to the ‘- ive’
charge carried by the electron.
Has it been experimentally tested…

An experiment performed by J. G. King.

Hydrogen gas was compressed into a tank

that was electrically insulated from its
surroundings.
About 17 grams of hydrogen, ~ 5 X 1024
molecules.

The gas was then allowed to escape by

means that prevented the scape of any
ion.
If the charge on proton differed from electron
by 1 part per million,

then

each hydrogen molecule would carry a charge

of 2X10-9 e and the departure of gas from the
tank will alter the charge by 1016 e.
The experiment could measure a charge
upto 2X10-20 e.

None was observed !!!

Electron and proton charge do not differ by

more than 1 part in 1020.
For the discussion concerning the present
course, we shall treat the charged particles
as point particles.

This enables us to ignore any internal

structure which plays no significant role in
our problem of interest.
Forces due to electric charges:

Electric forces are what hold together

atoms and molecules, solids and liquids.

In collisions between objects, electric

forces push things apart.
Much of the modern
physical description of
electrical forces comes
from careful experiments
done by the French
scientist Charles Augustin
Coulomb (1736-1806).
Coulomb was an Army
engineer.

After many projects in

engineering, he began
work on pure physics.
Coulomb perfected a
torsion balance which
could reliably
measure such small forces

Coulomb suspended a
needle on a fine fiber of
silver, copper, or silk.
The needle held a small
electrically charged pith
ball at one end and a
counterweight at the
other end, balanced so
that the needle could
rotate in a horizontal
plane.
The calibrated torsion
balance measured the
force needed to twist
the needle through a
given angle.
Two stationary charges repel or attract one
another with a force proportional to the
product of the magnitude of charges and
inversely proportional to the square of the
distance between them.

The force obeys Newton’s third law.

What about the direction of force?

It was observed that the electrical force

was always along the line joining the two
charges.
If is the unit vector
along the direction from
charge-1 to charge-2,
then the force on
charge-2 is given by:

If is the force on charge-1 then,

SI unit of charge: coulomb (C)

Definition:
Two like charges, each of 1 coulomb, repel one
another with a force of 8.988 x 109 newtons,
when they are 1 meter apart.

 K = 8.988 x 109 Nm2/C2

Charge on the electron: 1.602 x 10-19 C.

k is expressed as , customarily.

 = 8.854 x 10-12 C2/Nm2

1 coulomb is a very large unit if charge.

In Gaussian system (cgs), the charge is

expressed in electrostatic unit (esu).

1 coulomb = 2.998 x 109 esu

e = 1.602 x 10 -19
C 4.8 x 10 -10
esu
Some more observations:
The force with which two charges interact is
not changed by the presence of a third
charge.

No matter how many charges we have in our

system, Coulomb’s law can be used to
calculate the interaction of every pair.
Principle of superposition:

The force on a charge placed at any point in

the combined system will be the vector sum
of the forces that each set of sources, acting
alone, causes to act on a charge at that point.
Since we will be dealing with vectors
rigorously throughout this course, we will
introduce the required concepts and details
as and when required.
Chapter-1, Electricity and magnetism, Edward M. Purcell (Berkely Physics Course,
Vol:2)

APS News, June 2016 (Volume 25, Number 6)

https://lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/history/fles/fles.html

https://www.wired.com/2017/01/the-physics-of-leyden-jars/
Schematic showing working principle of ECRIS
Beam guiding and diagnostic elements

Einzel Lens
Ion source produces ions with different charge states

X X X X X

X X X X X

X X X X X
900 Bending Magnet
X X X X X

How to select a particular

charge states ??
Electrostatic quadrupole

Works as a combination of
lenses, focus the beam in
both planes.
Electrostatic X-Y steerer

+
First cyclotron, USA CERN, Switzerland
Size: Table top Size: 27 km