### EM II Notes 2014_11_23: Homework sketches

Just a few notes on how to proceed on the penultimate homework of the semester.

We're to show that the solutions for the 30/60/90 triangular waveguide given in the last homework set will also work for a waveguide that's formed from an equilateral traingle.  The three corners of the equilateral traingle are located at $\left(x,y\right) = \left(0, 0\right)$, $\left(x,y\right) = \left(a, a/\sqrt{3}\right)$, and $\left(x,y\right) = \left(a, -a/\sqrt{3}\right)$.

This falls out immediately from last week's homeowrk.  Because the sine function is peiodic in $\pi$ over the domain from $\left(-\infty, \infty\right)$, the solution given last week in terms of sines will still evaluate to zero on the wall that falls at negative $y$. coordites.  The positive $x$ coordinates of the functions will evaluate to 0 on the wall in the same manner they did before???  There's an issue here.  It's products of the $x$ and $y$ sinusoids that all sum to zero.  These will need to be checked to determine if they still evaluate to zero.  Since the y terms are converted to x terms using the coordinates of the walls, there's very little to do in checking that things are stil OK.  Everyting converts down to a difference of cosines expressed as

$cos\dfrac{m-n}{3a} - cos\dfrac{n-m}{3a}$

However, because the three $y$ sin functions are odd, they will merely wind up with negative signs out in front that can be factored out of the entire expression.  The result will be the same.

### Cool Math Tricks: Deriving the Divergence, (Del or Nabla) into New (Cylindrical) Coordinate Systems

The following is a pretty lengthy procedure, but converting the divergence, (nabla, del) operator between coordinate systems comes up pretty often. While there are tables for converting between common coordinate systems, there seem to be fewer explanations of the procedure for deriving the conversion, so here goes!

What do we actually want?

To convert the Cartesian nabla

to the nabla for another coordinate system, say… cylindrical coordinates.

What we’ll need:

1. The Cartesian Nabla:

2. A set of equations relating the Cartesian coordinates to cylindrical coordinates:

3. A set of equations relating the Cartesian basis vectors to the basis vectors of the new coordinate system:

How to do it:

Use the chain rule for differentiation to convert the derivatives with respect to the Cartesian variables to derivatives with respect to the cylindrical variables.

The chain rule can be used to convert a differential operator in terms of one variable into a series of differential operators in terms of othe…

### The Valentine's Day Magnetic Monopole

There's an assymetry to the form of the two Maxwell's equations shown in picture 1.  While the divergence of the electric field is proportional to the electric charge density at a given point, the divergence of the magnetic field is equal to zero.  This is typically explained in the following way.  While we know that electrons, the fundamental electric charge carriers exist, evidence seems to indicate that magnetic monopoles, the particles that would carry magnetic 'charge', either don't exist, or, the energies required to create them are so high that they are exceedingly rare.  That doesn't stop us from looking for them though!

Keeping with the theme of Fairbank[1] and his academic progeny over the semester break, today's post is about the discovery of a magnetic monopole candidate event by one of the Fairbank's graduate students, Blas Cabrera[2].  Cabrera was utilizing a loop type of magnetic monopole detector.  Its operation is in concept very simpl…

### Unschooling Math Jams: Squaring Numbers in their own Base

Some of the most fun I have working on math with seven year-old No. 1 is discovering new things about math myself.  Last week, we discovered that square of any number in its own base is 100!  Pretty cool!  As usual we figured it out by talking rather than by writing things down, and as usual it was sheer happenstance that we figured it out at all.  Here’s how it went.

I've really been looking forward to working through multiplication ala binary numbers with seven year-old No. 1.  She kind of beat me to the punch though: in the last few weeks she's been learning her multiplication tables in base 10 on her own.  This became apparent when five year-old No. 2 decided he wanted to do some 'schoolwork' a few days back.

"I can sing that song... about the letters? all by myself now!"  2 meant the alphabet song.  His attitude towards academics is the ultimate in not retaining unnecessary facts, not even the name of the song :)

After 2 had worked his way through the so…