Maxwell's equations
1
7.8
- noun
- /ˈmækswɛlz ɪˈkweɪʒənz/
- Specialized
- In electrical engineering, Maxwell's equations are essential for analyzing circuits that involve varying electromagnetic fields.
- solutions to Maxwell's equations
Examples
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Maxwell's equations are derived in integral form, and the book concludes with a study of radiation and some of its applications.
Academic text (1996) -
Even if we were able to solve Maxwell's equations for a particular environment, the solution would change completely as soon as the environment changed.
Academic text (2001) -
One might be surprised that the magnetic and electric fields are independent, since from Maxwell's equations, E = B x k.
Academic text (2001) -
Although at some level all radio propagation reduces to Maxwell's equations, the complexity of real environments makes a complete solution impossible, even numerically, for all but the simplest cases.
Academic text (2001) -
Nevertheless, the mathematical level remains appropriate for a calculus-based course; students are expected to perform integrals over charge and current distributions and to work with the surface and line integrals of Maxwell's equations.
Academic text (1996) -
Maxwell's equations, formulated in 1865, embodied both Lorentz invariance and gauge invariance.
Academic text (1995) -
Maxwell's equations describe how Maxwell's equations interact with each other.
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Physicists rely on Maxwell's equations to understand the behavior of electromagnetic waves in different media.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Maxwell's + equation
The phrase is a possessive proper name plus a common noun, so a learner who recognises 'Maxwell's' as a name and 'equation' as a mathematical sentence can infer it means equations attributed to Maxwell. However, the precise technical meaning (the four fundamental differential equations describing electric and magnetic fields) is domain-specific and not deducible from the constituents alone, so understanding is only partial without background knowledge.
Etymology
Maxwell's equations are named after the scientist James Clerk Maxwell, who wrote four equations that show how electric and magnetic fields work together. Think of them as four simple 'rules' that tie electricity and magnetism together, so the name now means the basic rules for electric and magnetic fields.