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What Physicists Don’t Know About Electromagnetism

Fri

at

4:00 PM

Duration:

60

(mins)

CC - Mtg Rm 3 (STEM)

Hans G. Schantz presents. In the 1940s, physicists and engineers alike used Stratton’s Electromagnetic Theory as their text. They learned about such applied topics as simple antennas, waveguides, arrays, even radio wave propagation over the earth. Today, physicists use Jackson’s Classical Electrodynamics. There’s still material on simple antennas and waveguides, but nothing on arrays and the only practical case of radio wave propagation mentioned is Schumann resonances. Meanwhile radio scientists and electromagnetic engineers have taken Schelkunoff’s concept of “impedance” and put it to work in a host of practical applications understanding transmission and reflection of microwave signals. They’ve worked out link laws that describe what fraction of energy makes it from a transmitter to a receiver, or reflects from a target in a radar system. They’ve worked out fundamental equations for physical limits on the size and performance of small antennas. What else don’t physicists know about electromagnetism? And what implications does it have for our understanding of how the world works? Find out in this talk!

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