Angol
Electromagnetic theory has been a basic subject taught for more than a century to physics students but not to the electrical-engineering student. Before the Second World War the engineer was weil grounded in circuit theory but was notoriously weak in field theory; by and large he might have heard of Maxwell's equations but he certainly did not use them. Since the Second World War, many fac. tors have greatly changed the engineer's outlook; particularly the astonishing advances in electronics, in communications (particularly microwaves) and more recently in solid-state devices. Consequently, a basic course in electromagnetics and applications has been inc1uded in most first-degree courses in electrical and electronic engineering since about 1950. The many earlier excellent texts available were unsuitable for engineering courses in electromagnetics for two reasons. First, they had been written from the point of view of the physicist, being more concerned with basic principles than with applications. Second, the introduction of SI (rationalised MKS) units meant that these earlier texts needed to be revised. Consequently the new texts in this subject have been in the main written by and for electrical engineers: as examples see the books by Skilling, Cullwick, Carter, Hayt, and Lorrain and Corson. These excellent texts have been found too advanced and too lengthy for the short time allocated to electromagnetism at Nottingham, that is about fifteen lecture hours in the first year and about twenty in the second year.
