Classical electrodynamics

de Kimball A. Milton

This text for the graduate classical electrodynamics course was left unfinished upon Julian Schwinger's death in 1994, but was completed by his coauthors, who have recreated the excitement of Schwinger's novel approach. Classical Electrodynamics captures Schwinger's inimitable lecturing style, in which everything flows inexorably from what has gone before. Novel elements of the approach include the immediate inference of Maxwell's equations from Coulomb's law and (Galilean) relativity, the use of action and stationary principles, the central role of Green's functions both in statics and dynamics, and, throughout, the integration of mathematics and physics. The book 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.