8. Electromagnetic Waves in a Vacuum

View the complete OCW resource: http://ocw.mit.edu/resources/res-8-00... Instructor: Wit Busza In this session, we show how the properties (wavelength, frequency, amplitude and polarization) of an electromagnetic wave can be concluded from the equation that describes the wave and vice versa. NOTE: These videos were originally produced as part of a physics course that is no longer available on OCW. Chapters 0:00:00 Title slate 0:00:21 Electromagnetic Waves overview 0:03:29 Given the electric field of a standing EM wave, we derive the magnetic field. 0:04:54 Review of Maxwell's equations. 0:09:54 Description of a circularly polarized EM wave. 0:10:24 Similar wave but which is moving at 45 degrees to the x-axis. 0:12:54 Description of a plane polarized EM wave moving in the x-direction. 0:17:34 For the above EM standing wave, we calculate the energy density and Poynting vector. License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA More information at http://ocw.mit.edu/terms More courses at http://ocw.mit.edu