How do we gather information to refine our models of the physical world? This course is all about data: acquiring data, separating signals from noise, analyzing and interpreting data, and communicating results. Much – indeed nearly all – data spend some time as an electrical signal, so we will study analog electronics. In addition, students will become familiar with contemporary experimental techniques, instrumentation, and/or computational methods. Throughout, students will develop skills in scientific communication, especially in the written form.

In the mid-nineteenth century, completing nearly a century of work by others, Maxwell developed an elegant set of equations describing the dynamical behavior of electromagnetic fields. A remarkable consequence of Maxwell’s equations is that the wave theory of light is subsumed under electrodynamics. Moreover, we know from subsequent developments that the electromagnetic interaction largely determines the structure and properties of ordinary matter. This course will begin with Coulomb’s Law but will quickly introduce the concept of the electric field.