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We investigate learning difficulties among second-year students on electromagnetism courses when they apply Amp\`ere-Maxwell's law. Using phenomenography, we analysed written answers from 65 undergraduate physics students to four questions…
Teaching magnetism is one of the most challenging topics at undergraduate level in programmes with scientific background. A basic course includes the description of the magnetic interaction along with empirical results such as the…
Helping students learn why Gauss' law can or cannot be easily applied to determine the strength of the electric field at various points for a particular charge distribution, and then helping them learn to determine the shape of the Gaussian…
We compare the magnetic field at the center of and the self-magnetic flux through a current-carrying circular loop, with those obtained for current-carrying polygons with the same perimeter. As the magnetic field diverges at the position of…
We investigate the difficulties that students in calculus-based introductory physics courses have with the concepts of symmetry, electric field, and electric flux which are important for applying Gauss's law. The determination of the…
Understanding Maxwell's equations in differential form is of great importance when studying the electrodynamic phenomena discussed in advanced electromagnetism courses. It is therefore necessary that students master the use of vector…
The Ampere-Maxwell's law and the displacement current constitute one of the most difficult aspects of electromagnetic theory for students in introductory electromagnetics courses. Here we present a set of examples that go beyond the…
Formally investigating the sources of students' difficulties around specific subjects is crucial for developing appropriate strategies to help students. We have been studying difficulties in understanding magnetism encountered by students…
The evaluation of the magnetic field inside and outside a uniform current density infinite solenoid of uniform cross-section is an elementary problem in classical electrodynamics that all undergraduate Physics students study. Symmetry…
We discuss several similarities and differences between the concepts of electric and magnetic dipoles. We then consider the relation between the magnetic dipole and a current loop and show that in the limit of a pointlike circuit, their…
Electromagnetism, being much less intuitive than mechanics, where a lot of sources of misconceptions have been documented, has in addition to the common sources of misconceptions borrowed from mechanics other sources related to the abstract…
We investigate introductory physics students' difficulties in translating between mathematical and graphical representations and the effect of scaffolding on students' performance. We gave a typical problem that can be solved using Gauss's…
Expanding our knowledge of student difficulties in advanced undergraduate electromagnetism is essential if we are to develop effective instructional interventions. Drawing on an analysis of course materials, in-class observations and…
In the introductory courses on electromagnetism, the Biot-Savart law is generally explained by a simple example to find the magnetic field created at any point in space by a small wire element that carries a current. The simplest system…
We investigated students' use of Newton's second law in mechanics and electromagnetism contexts by interviewing students in a two-semester calculus-based physics course. We observed that students' responses are consistent with three mental…
We are interested in the motion of a classical charge coupled to the Maxwell self-field and subject to a uniform external magnetic field, B. This is a physically relevant, but difficult dynamical problem, to which contributions range over…
Within the context of general relativity we study in a fully covariant way the so-called Euler-Maxwell system of equations. In particular, on decomposing the aforementioned system into its 1 temporal and 1 + 2 spatial components at the…
We investigated the common difficulties that students have with concepts related to rotational and rolling motion covered in the introductory physics courses. We compared the performance of calculus- and algebra-based introductory physics…
We consider an electron constrained to move on a surface with revolution symmetry in the presence of a constant magnetic field $B$ parallel to the surface axis. Depending on $B$ and the surface geometry the transverse part of the spectrum…
For some physics students, the concept of a particle travelling faster than the speed of light holds endless fascination, and Cherenkov radiation is a visible consequence of a charged particle travelling through a medium at locally…