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Field Line Motion in Classical Electromagnetism John W Field line motion in classical electromagnetism John W. Belchera) and Stanislaw Olbert Department of Physics and Center for Educational Computing Initiatives, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 ͑Received 15 June 2001; accepted 30 October 2002͒ We consider the concept of field line motion in classical electromagnetism for crossed electromagnetic fields and suggest definitions for this motion that are physically meaningful but not unique. Our choice has the attractive feature that the local motion of the field lines is in the direction of the Poynting vector. The animation of the field line motion using our approach reinforces Faraday’s insights into the connection between the shape of the electromagnetic field lines and their dynamical effects. We give examples of these animations, which are available on the Web. © 2003 American Association of Physics Teachers. ͓DOI: 10.1119/1.1531577͔ I. INTRODUCTION meaning.10,11 This skepticism is in part due to the fact that there is no unique way to define the motion of field lines. Classical electromagnetism is a difficult subject for begin- Nevertheless, the concept has become an accepted and useful ning students. This difficulty is due in part to the complexity one in space plasma physics.12–14 In this paper we focus on a of the underlying mathematics which obscures the physics.1 particular definition of the velocity of electric and magnetic The standard introductory approach also does little to con- field lines that is useful in quasi-static situations in which the nect the dynamics of electromagnetism to the everyday ex- E and B fields are mutually perpendicular. Although this perience of students. Because much of our learning is done definition can be identified with physically meaningful quan- by analogy,2 students have a difficult time constructing con- tities in appropriate limits, it is not unique. We choose here a ceptual models of the ways in which electromagnetic fields particular subset of the infinite range of possible field line mediate the interactions of the charged objects that generate motions. them. However, there is a way to make this connection for Previous work in the animation of electromagnetic fields many situations in electromagnetism. includes film loops of the electric field lines of accelerating This approach has been known since the time of Faraday charges15 and of electric dipole radiation.11 Computers have who originated the concept of fields. He was also the first to been used to illustrate the time evolution of quasi-static understand that the geometry of electromagnetic field lines is electro- and magneto-static fields,16,17 although pessimism a guide to their dynamical effects. By trial and error, Faraday has been expressed about their educational utility for the av- deduced that the electromagnetic field lines transmit a ten- erage student.18 Electric and Magnetic Interactions is a col- sion along the field lines and a pressure perpendicular to the lection of three-dimensional movies of electric and magnetic field lines. From his empirical knowledge of the shape of the fields.19 The Mechanical Universe uses a number of three- field lines, he was able to understand the dynamical effects dimensional animations of the electromagnetic field.20 Max- of those fields based on simple analogies to strings and well World is a real-time virtual reality interface that allows ropes.3–5 users to interact with three-dimensional electromagnetic As we demonstrate in this paper, the animation of the mo- fields.21 References 11 and 15 use essentially the method we tion of field lines in dynamical situations reinforces Fara- define here for the animation, although they do not explicitly day’s insight into the connection between shape and define the velocity field that we will introduce. The other dynamics.6 Animation allows the student to gain insight into citations on the animation of field lines are not explicit about the way in which fields transmit stresses by watching how the method they use. None of these treatments focuses on the motion of material objects evolve in response to those relating the dynamical effects of fields to the shape of the stresses.7 Such animations enable the student to better make field lines. Our emphasis on dynamics and shape is similar to the intuitive connection between the stresses transmitted by other pedagogical approaches for understanding forces in electromagnetic fields and the forces transmitted by more electromagnetism.4,5 prosaic means, for example, by rubber bands and strings. We emphasize that we consider here only the mathematics of how to animate field line motion and not the pedagogical II. NONUNIQUENESS OF FIELD LINE MOTION results of using these animations in instruction. We are cur- rently using these animations in an introductory studio phys- To demonstrate explicitly the ambiguities inherent in de- ics course at MIT that most closely resembles the fining the evolution of field lines, consider a point charge SCALE-UP course at NCSU.8 The instruction includes pre- with charge q and mass m, initially moving upward along the ϭϪ and post-tests in electromagnetism, with comparisons to con- negative z-axis in a constant background field E E0zˆ. trol groups taught in the traditional lecture/recitation format. The position of the charge as a function of time is given by Although some of the results of this study have appeared in 9 ͑ ͒ϭ͑ 1 2Ϫ ϩ 9 ͒ ͑ ͒ preliminary form, the full study is still in progress, and the Xcharge t 2 t 3t 2 zˆ 1 results will be reported elsewhere. and its velocity is given by We note that the idea of moving field lines has long been ͒ϭ Ϫ ͒ ͑ ͒ considered suspect because of a perceived lack of physical Vcharge͑t ͑t 3 zˆ. 2 220 Am. J. Phys. 71 ͑3͒, March 2003 http://ojps.aip.org/ajp/ © 2003 American Association of Physics Teachers 220 Fig. 1. Electric field lines for a point charge in a constant electric field. We also show the Maxwell stress vectors dFϭT"ndA on a spherical surface surrounding the charge. Because the magnitude of the stress vector varies greatly around the surface, the length of the displayed vectors is propor- tional to the square root of the length of the stress vector, rather than to length of the stress vector itself. The charge comes to rest at the origin at tϭ3 time units, and then moves back down the negative z-axis. Figure 1 shows the charge at the origin when it comes to rest. The strength of the background field is such that the total field is zero at a distance of one unit above the charge. Figure 1 also shows a set of electric field lines at this time for the total field ͑that is, the field of the charge plus that of the constant field͒. Note that in Fig. 1 and in our other figures, we make no attempt to have the density of the field lines represent the strength of the field ͑there are difficulties asso- ciated with such a representation in any case22͒. We discuss other features of Fig. 1 below. Now suppose we want to make a movie of the scenario in Fig. 1, showing both the moving charge and the time- changing electric field lines. How would we do this? Of course, there is no problem in animating the charge motion, but there are an infinite number of ways of animating the Fig. 2. Two frames of a method for animating field lines for a charge moving in a constant field. At any instant of time, we begin drawing the field field line motion. We show one of these ways in Fig. 2, lines from the six spheres, which are fixed in space. In ͑a͒, the particle is still which gives two snapshots of the evolution of six different out of sight on the negative z-axis, but the influence of its field can be seen. field lines. The animation method that we use here is as In ͑b͒, the particle is at the origin and has come to rest before beginning to follows ͑this method is not the method we use later͒. At any move back down the negative z-axis. time ͑frame͒, we start drawing each of our six field lines at six different points, with each of the six initial points fixed in We again emphasize that there are an infinite number of time and space for a given field line. These six points are ways to animate electric field line motions for the problem at indicated by the spheres in Fig. 2. Figure 2͑a͒ shows the field hand. We have shown one way in Fig. 2. Another way would lines computed in this way when the charge is still out of be to start out with the same six points shown in Fig. 2͑a͒, sight on the negative z-axis at tϭ0, moving upward. Figure but now let their positions oscillate sinusoidally in the hori- 2͑b͒ shows these ‘‘same’’ field lines when the charge has zontal direction with some amplitude and frequency. At any arrived at the origin at tϭ3. instant of time, we could then construct the field lines that Although we have a perfectly well-defined animation of pass through those six points. This construction would also the field line motion using this method, the method has many give us an animation of the field line motion for these six undesirable features. To name two, the innermost four field field lines which would be continuous and well-behaved. lines in Fig. 2, which were originally connected to the However, other than the fact that the field lines would be charges producing the constant field in Fig.
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