Electrostatics

Browse Course Materials

Course Materials are organized by collection (e.g., administrative, clicker questions, etc.). Links to both printable PDFs and editable source documents have been provided.

Please note, while this interface is designed to allow for easy browsing of the E&M 1 materials, it represents only a subset of the available resources. Additional materials and support documents can be found in the course archive in a zip format.

Administrative

This course has been taught in a 3-day 50 minute meeting format. The Weekly schedule provides details of topics and activities covered over the course of the spring '08 semester. The 'detailed' schedule includes more in-depth reflections on the presentation of topics and on the use of particular pedagogical practices for that lecture.

Sample Lecture notes

We have provided a PDF of lecture notes used in the Spring 2008 course. Steven Pollock authored the lecture notes; notes from additional instructors can be found in the course archive.

Lecture notes are organized by topic.

  • 1 - Coulomb's Law [PDF]
  • 2 - Gauss' Law [PDF]
  • 3 - Electric Potential [PDF]
  • 4 - Work and Electrostatic Energy [PDF]
  • 5 - Conductors [PDF]
  • 6 - Laplace's Equation [PDF]
  • 7 - Method of Images [PDF]
  • 8 - Separation of Variables (Cartesian and Spherical) [PDF]
  • 9 - Dipoles and the Multipole Expansion [PDF]
  • 10 - Dielectrics: Polarization [PDF]
  • 11 - Dielectrics: Electric Displacement [PDF]
  • 12 - Dielectrics: Boundary Value Problems [PDF]
  • 13 - Lorentz Force Law: Introduction to Magnetostatics [PDF]
  • 14 - Current Density [PDF]
  • 15 - Biot-Savart Law [PDF]
  • 16 - Ampere's Law [PDF]
  • 17 - The Vector Potenital [PDF]
  • 18 - Magnetic Media: Magnetization [PDF]
  • 19 - Magnetic Media: Bound Currents [PDF]
  • 20 - Magnetic Media: The Auxiliary Field [PDF]
  • 21 - Introduction to Electrodynamics [PDF]

Concept Tests/Clicker Questions

In our implementation, students are required to own a personal response device (a clicker). These concept tests are posed during lecture and were used to facilitate discussion and test comprehension of different concepts. We provide the modifiable source in PPT format with notes and a PDF version for posting or reading (no notes).

Clicker questions are organized by topic.

Tutorials & Pre-tests

Tutorials are typically given in an optional one-hour co-seminar each week. Instructors walk around the room checking on student progress and posing additional questions. We have compiled detailed notes on implementation best practices as well as complementary homework problems.

We have also incorporated modified versions of these Tutorials into lecture as shorter, in-class activities. The in-class versions of the tutorials are included in the full archive download, or you can download them here.

Many of these Tutorials were inspired by materials from "Jackson by Inquiry" by Bruce Patton, materials developed by Paul Van Campen, and the OSU's Paradigms course.

  • Tutorial 1: Coulomb's Law & the Charged Bike Tire [PDF] [DOC]
  • Tutorial 2: Gauss' Law and the SLAC Lightning Strike [PDF] [DOC]
  • Tutorial 3: Electric Potential [PDF] [DOC]
  • Tutorial 4: Conceptually Understanding Conductors [PDF] [DOC]
  • Review Tutorial 1 [PDF] [DOC]
  • Tutorial 5: Separation of Variables [PDF] [DOC]
  • Tutorial 6: Zen and the Art of Multipole Expansion [PDF] [DOC]
  • Tutorial 7: Squinting Closely at Plastic - Polarization and Bound Charge [PDF] [DOC]
  • Review Tutorial 2 [PDF] [DOC]
  • Tutorial 8: Is the sphere half empty or half full? - Linear Dielectrics [PDF] [DOC]
  • Tutorial 9: Unpacking Ampere's Law [PDF] [DOC]
  • Tutorial 10: The Vector Potential [PDF] [DOC]
  • Tutorial 11: Magnets [PDF] [DOC]
  • Review Tutorial 3 [PDF] [DOC]
  • Tutorial 12: Motional EMF [PDF] [DOC]

The Tutorial pre-tests were developed to get students think about the material in that week's Tutorial. They can be given out as short quizes at the start of class, as paper documents handed out a day or so before the Tutorial, or given online. Examples of the online versions of these pretests are available in the full archive download. These pre-tests are preliminary and have not been validated.

Homework Questions/Assignments

Weekly homework sets were solved by students. Homework questions were written and compiled the week before homework was given to students. Because homework questions followed the pace of the course, it makes little sense to enumerate the sets for distribution. Below, we have provided a series homework questions organized by topic.

Homework questions used at CU Boulder

Homework Assignments from Previous Semesters' courses

It is often helpful to review complete homework assignments assigned by other instructors to make note of their length and difficulty. Below, we have provided a zip file to each semesters' homework sets assigned by instructors who have taught our transformed course. The zip file contains word documents as well as PDFs of each homework set. The file for Spring '08 also contains reflections from the instructor on each set.

Homework Solutions

Solutions to homework sets are available to instructors. The links below are password protected. Please contact to obtain access to the solutions.

Exams (secure)

Exams and solutions are available to instructors. Please contact to obtain access to exams and solutions.

In-class Activities

The following resource documents list the content learning goals and in-class activities associated with each topic.