Classical Electrodynamics: Second Edition

Classical Electrodynamics captures Schwinger’s inimitable lecturing style, in which everything flows inexorably from what has gone before. This anniversary edition offers a refreshing update while still maintaining Schwinger’s voice.

The book provides the student with a thorough grounding in electrodynamics in particular, and in classical field theory in general. An essential resource for both physicists and their students, the book includes a Reader’s Guide, which describes the major themes in each chapter, suggests a possible path through the book, and identifies topics for inclusion in, and exclusion from, a given course, depending on the instructor’s preference.

Carefully constructed problems complement the material of the text. Classical Electrodynamics should be of great value to all physicists, from first-year graduate students to senior researchers, and to all those interested in electrodynamics, field theory, and mathematical physics.

The original text for the graduate classical electrodynamics course was left unfinished upon Julian Schwinger’s death in 1994, but was completed by his former students and co-authors, who have brilliantly recreated the excitement of Schwinger’s novel approach. This anniversary edition has been revised by one of those original co-authors, Kimball Milton.

The late Julian Schwinger shared the 1965 Nobel Prize for Physics with Richard Feynman and Shin’ichirō Tomonaga for their work on the theory of quantum electrodynamics. Kimball A. Milton is George Lynn Cross Research Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at the University of Oklahoma, currently residing in Memphis, Tennessee.