/sci/ - Science & Math

No a Physics Professor would probably not score perfectly on any Physics question you throw at them.

Exams are a good metric for progress. Reading the material is not enough to understand it. You need to be able to manipulate the material you've read. For instance, If I gave a calc 3 student with no knowledge of Physics Maxwell's eqs they would "understand it" but I doubt they would be able to solve problems using them.

>>7912063
Here anon, no need to thank me

/sci/, have we actually explained magnetism?

I had a dream last night, inside of which my dad said something about Einstein and magnetism, to which I replied, "But dad, nobody /really/ knows how magnetism works." When I woke up, I realized that the only reason I said this was because it was the answer I was given in high school when I asked the same question.

I just finished my first rigorous E&M course, so I understand how we can qualitatively describe B field using magnetization or Maxwell's equations (in static situations) and so on; next semester will be the relativistic portion that explains differing E/B fields in different frames. But is it understood down to the very fundamental levels, i.e. why there are even magnetic moments and dipoles in the first place?

Often we were told the simple model of an electron orbiting a nucleus and how this creates the magnetic moments of atoms, but obviously this is just a model and not how it really works given the nature of electrons. So am I just missing some key element, and we solved magnetism long ago when Einstein reconciled it with relativity, or do we really still not know the explanation down to some level that isn't really necessary for most purposes?

>>6931228
it all starts when a cold night a man called maxwell picks up all the laws related to electromagnetism and make the well known maxwell equations(he didn't create all of them nor the theory behind them). Working a little on those equations you can find the diferential operator of waves, which solving it describes waves that moves in a media with a certain velocity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_equation

macrosopic maxwells equations for me.
they describe complicated interactions that determine our everyday life (any force we feel except gravity is electromagnetic in nature) in a simple, compact and symmetric way and lay the foundation for entire industries (optics, telecommunication, power etc).