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CODE 108701
ACADEMIC YEAR 2025/2026
CREDITS
SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINARY SECTOR FIS/01
LANGUAGE Italian
TEACHING LOCATION
  • GENOVA
SEMESTER 1° Semester
TEACHING MATERIALS AULAWEB

OVERVIEW

The course is designed for first-year students of "Ingegneria Gestionale". The topics relate to the classical electromagnetism from the electric field to Faraday's law, including the RL circuit. Excluded from the course are oscillating circuits,  AC circuits and electromagnetic waves.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course provides an introduction to phenomenology and the mathematical formulation of the laws of classical electromagnetism, mainly considering vacuum problems as well as the scientific-technical methodology necessary to deal with the problems of physics in quantitative terms.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

The specific training objective is to provide the student with the ability to solve elementary but concrete problems. This implies that the student must know how to distinguish between fundamental concepts (electric and magnetic fields and forces, works, Gauss's laws, Ampere's, Faraday's, ...) and more specific issues (motion of charges in electromagnetic fields, cylindrical condensers, .. .).

PREREQUISITES

There are no specific requirements.

TEACHING METHODS

The course consists on blackboard lectures on the blackboard supported by streaming if needed. Attendance at lectures and exercises is strongly recommended.
Working students and students with certified specific learning disorders (SLD), disabilities, or other special educational needs are encouraged to contact the instructor at the beginning of the course to agree on teaching and assessment methods that, while respecting the learning objectives, take into account individual learning styles

 

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

Introduction to the course, recalls (vectors, significant digits, units).

Electrical phenomena. Coulomb's law. Exercise: comparison between electrostatic and gravitational force. Superposition principle.

The electrostatic field for point charge, discrete distribution, continuous distribution. Exercise: electrostatic field of a charged ring. Exercise: electrostatic field of a charged disk, infinite R limit. Electrostatic field of two charged infinite planes. Field lines.

The work of the electrostatic field: potential and potential energy for a point charge, a discrete system and a continuous system of charges. Exercise: potential and potential energy of a system of 3 point charges. Electric field as a gradient of potential. Exercises: potential of a uniform field, undefined parallel charged planes; potential of a charged ring. Potential of the charged disc.

Motion of a charge in an electric field, conservation of energy. Exercises: electron in a uniform field; classic model of the Bohr atom; electrostatic separator.

The electric dipole. V and E. Forces on a dipole immersed in E (uniform). Torque and energy.

Construction of the concept of flow of a vector field with the analogy of fluid physics. Flow of the electrostatic field. Gauss theorem and proof only in the case of spherical surface and point-like charge. Exercises: E and V of a superficial spherical charge distribution; E and V of a uniformly charged sphere; E and V of a uniformly charged cylinder; E and V of an infinite charged plane.

Conductors in equilibrium electrostatic, conductors with cavities, charge inside cavities, electrostatic induction.

Capacitors. Spherical, flat, cylindrical capacitors. Electrostatic energy of a capacitor, energy density. Capacitors in series and in parallel. Dipole oscillating in E.

Classic model for electrical conduction, drift velocity, current density, current. Ohm's law, Joule effect, series and parallel resistors, electromotive force. Kirchhoff's laws, charge and discharge of a condenser.

The magnetic field: empirical observations. Lorentz's force. Particle moving in uniform B, angular velocity. Examples: mass spectrometer; speed selector; cyclotron.

Force on a current-carrying conductor and immersed in B; mechanical torque on a coil.

Magnetic field produced by a current (Laplace's law) and by a moving charge. Applications: rectilinear wire (Biot-Savart law); circular coil. Applications: rectilinear solenoid. Forces between wires covered by current.

Ampère's theorem and demonstration in the case of rectilinear thread. Applications: wire field, rectilinear solenoid and toroidal solenoid.

The flow of B. Solenoidal fields.

Law of Faraday-Neumann-Lenz. Continuous and alternate current generator. Law of Felici.

Self-induction. Inductance of a solenoid, RL circuit, closing overcurrent. Magnetic energy. Mutual induction (outline).

Displacement current. Maxwell equations

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

P. Mazzoldi, M. Nigro, C. Voci, "Elementi di fisica - elettromagnetismo", EdiSES

D. Halliday, R.Resnick, J.Walker, “Fondamenti di Fisica” II ; Ed. CEA

D. J. Griffiths "Introduction to electrodynamics".

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

LESSONS

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

The exam will include a written part and an oral part. 

The written test involves the resolution of 4 simple problems to be solved in 3 hours. 
Students who have obtained a score of at least 16/30 in the written test will be admitted to the oral exam. 

The oral exam will evaluate the skills acquired by the students.
Students with disabilities or specific learning disorders (SLD) are reminded that, in order to request accommodations for exams, they must first upload their certification to the University website at servizionline.unige.it in the "Studenti" section.
The documentation will be verified by the University’s Office for the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities and SLD: https://rubrica.unige.it/strutture/struttura/100111.

Subsequently, students must send an email to the instructor responsible for the exam at least 10 days in advance of the exam date, copying both the School's Inclusion Contact Person for students with disabilities and SLD, and the above-mentioned Office.
The email must include the following information:

- the name of the teaching module

- the exam date

- the student's full name and student ID number

- the compensatory tools and dispensatory measures considered necessary and requested

The Inclusion Contact Person will confirm to the instructor that the student is entitled to request accommodations and that such accommodations must be discussed and agreed upon with the instructor. The instructor will then confirm whether the requested accommodations can be granted.

Requests must be submitted at least 10 days before the exam date, to allow the instructor sufficient time to evaluate them. In particular, if the use of concept maps is requested for the exam (which must be significantly more concise than those used during study), failure to meet the deadline may result in insufficient time to make any necessary revisions.

For further information on requesting services and accommodations, please refer to the document: Guidelines for requesting services, compensatory tools and/or dispensatory measures, and specific aids.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

The written exam will evaluate the ability to: i) interpret the text of the proposed exercise and outline the problem; ii) identify the physical laws involved and the related equations to be applied; iii) quantitatively resolve the exercise; iv) evaluate the reasonableness of the numerical result obtained.
In order to evaluate the written test, the following parameters will be taken into account: the correct setting of the exercise, the correctness of the literal solution obtained, the congruence of the numerical solution obtained.
The oral exam will allow to ascertain the ability to: i) introduce the requested topic with language properties; ii) describe simple applications of the physical laws under consideration.
In order to evaluate the oral exam, the following parameters will be taken into account: the level of understanding of the topic, the quality of the presentation, the correct use of the specialist vocabulary, the capacity for critical reasoning.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Ask the professor for other information not included in the teaching schedule.

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