Electromagnetic Fields and Waves: Including Electric Circuits
by: Paul Lorrain, Dale R. Corson, Francois Lorrain
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Reviews:
Readers should start a campaign to reprint and/or get a new edition of this book. Professor Paul Lorrain is not only a recipient of the Legion of Honor of France and the equivalent of Montreal, Canada, but his book is a work of CREATIVE GENIUS. His problems contain very interesting applications of electromagnetism which both the public and specialists can identify with, including magnetic monopoles (very strange theoretical entities with only one pole instead of the usual north and south poles of magnets - see my reviews of Kursunoglu, Frolov, Klapdor-Kleingothaus, etc.) that are predicted by physics Grand Unified Theories, superconductors which have turned out to have remarkably important uses today (and the ferromagnetism which is closely related to them), the earth's magnetic field which is related to modern geophysics, hysteresis which is related to an important modern branch of nonlinear mathematics as well, artificial satellites which are so important today, solar wind which is extremely important today, and even the theory of continuous creation of electric charge. In addition, there are many chapters on electromagnetics in relativity (see my reviews of Weinberg and Misner et al.), Maxwell's equations, magnetic fields, electric fields, plane electromagnetic waves (see my review of A. Bohm), guided waves, radiation. Lorrain makes electromagnetism interesting, open minded on new ideas, and interdisciplinary, all characteristics of Creative Genius. The general public should also hire consultants or tutors to summarize this book or even teach it to them - it is well worth the effort because its ideas apply to fields far beyond physics. It should be mentioned that Lorrain et al give excellent summaries in the book, but the general reader might want some of them translated into closer to elementary mathematics or even approximately English.
Well, this review is pending of the fact that the text was only made better with time and further editions, but the 1970s edition is very good. It is a lucid and rigourus treatment of electromagnetics, and includes at least 140 examples, which i feel is an important learning mechanism. Some texts don't have examples or contain a very sparse selection of them, i find this appaling. In my opinion the book is right up there with David Griffiths' text. They make a good duo and it would behoove someone to obtain both of these great texts. Not necessarily because Electromagnetics is hard, but sometimes Griffiths leave out information that is pertinent to answer some of his question. This book provides those.