Something over 40% of the Third Edition is new or has been substantially revised from the previous edition. The following chapter-by-chapter list indicates the major changes in each chapter. Chapter and section numbering is that of the new edition; in many cases the numbering differs slightly from corresponding material in the previous edition.
Chapter 1. Fundamentals. Sections 1.1 (units), 1.3 (dielectric media), 1.5 (Lorentz force), and 1.8 (boundary conditions) have been largely rewritten. This chapter moves swiftly; a reader is expected to be reasonably familiar with basic electromagnetism, at least at the level of Purcell.
Chapter 2. Multipoles. Sections 2.7 (magnetic scalar potential and fictitious poles) and 2.8 (magnetic circuits and 'Ohm's law') are new.
Chapter 3. Laplace's equation. Sections 3.1 (general properties), 3.3 (solutions in spherical coordinates), 3.5 (cylindrical coordinates), and 3.6 (numerical techniques) are rewritten.
Chapter 4. Electrodynamics. Sections 4.8 (Maxwell stress tensor) and 4.10 (electromagnetism and relativity) are new. Sections 4.6-7 (energy and coefficients of potential) are rewritten. An extended discussion of the relaxation of nonequilibrium charge distributions is given in Sections 4.1 and 4.4.
Chapter 5. EM waves. Section 5.4 (radiation pressure) is new; Sections 5.3 (Poynting vector and the complex notation for waves) and 5.5 (waves in conducting media) are rewritten.
Chapter 6. Reflection and refraction. Sections 6.4-5 (metallic interface) are rewritten.
Chapter 7. Waveguides. A new chapter split off from the old Chapter 6. Section 7.1 (two-conductor transmission lines) and 7.6 (optical fibers) are new. Section 7.5 (rectangular metallic waveguides) is rewritten.
Chapter 8 (former 7). Retarded potentials and fields, radiation by charged particles. Section 8.2 ('Jefimenko's equations' for retarded fields) is new. Sections 8.4 (Lienard-Wiechert fields) and 8.5 (fields of uniformly moving charges) are rewritten.
Chapter 9 (former 8). Antennas. Essentially the entire chapter has been significantly rewritten. Section 9.5 (antenna directivity and effective area) is new. (The discussion of Hertz vectors in the previous editions has been deleted.)
Chapter 10 (former 9). Classical electron theory. Sections 10.3 (dispersion in dense matter), 10.4 (conductivity of metals), and 10.5 (waves in plasma) have been rewritten.
(The former Chapter 10 on spherical scalar waves has been deleted. This material is better left to the quantum mechanics course.)
Chapter 11. Interference and coherence. The treatment of coherence in Sections 11.2-3 and 11.6 is greatly expanded. The introduction to multiple slits is rewritten in Section 11.4, and a new treatment of diffraction gratings is given in Section 11.8.
Chapter 12. Fraunhofer diffraction. The introduction to Fresnel zones in Section 12.4 is new. Sections 12.5 (the Fraunhofer limit) and 12.8 (rectangular aperture) are rewritten.
Chapter 13. Fresnel diffraction. A new chapter split off from the old Chapter 12. Sections 12.2 (transition between wave and geometrical optics) and 12.3 (Gaussian beams and laser resonators) are new. Section 13.1 (Fresnel approximation) is rewritten.
Chapter 14 (former 13). Four-vector electrodynamics. Section 14.5 (field tensor) is expanded.
In addition to the changes detailed above, the new edition endeavors to cross-reference the SI forms of important formulas and illuminate the tricks for converting between Gaussian and SI units. It also extends the Marion-style historical footnotes.
In addition to the usual book references, a large number of journal articles are cited throughout. Most of these are fairly recent, to show that classical electromagnetism is a still-evolving subject and to encourage readers to make use of the contemporary journal literature.
The end-of-chapter problem sets have been revised, and a complete, well-annotated Solutions Manual is available.
The author will appreciate comments on the syllabus, and to be alerted to further errors and unclarities: mheald@frontiernet.net
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