Timeline for Is electromagnetic vector field a sum of E and B?
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7 events
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| Mar 16, 2015 at 3:07 | comment | added | hft | @ChrisWhite, yes you can go ahead and add those fields if you want... but you ought not. Why not just add in $\vec A$ itself to the sum? I'm sure you can finagle the units by introducing some dimensionful constants so that the terms with A,B, and E all match. Why not do this? Because it is pointless. | |
| Mar 16, 2015 at 3:03 | history | edited | hft | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 38 characters in body
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| Mar 15, 2015 at 23:38 | comment | added | akhmeteli | @WeSenseASoulInSearchOfAnswers: See my answer. You should also ask yourself what vector field you actually decompose in the Helmholtz decomposition. It can be any vector field, for example $\vec{E}$. | |
| Mar 15, 2015 at 23:36 | comment | added | ACuriousMind♦ | @WeSense: What do you mean "sum up to EM"? EM is, in non-relativistic notation, described by the two vector fields $\vec E$ and $\vec B$. Electromagnetism is a theory, not a vector any thing can sum up to. In relativistic notation, you unify this description into the EM field strength tensor. And that's it. | |
| Mar 15, 2015 at 23:20 | comment | added | WeSenseASoulInSearchOfAnswers | So let me reformulate the question - if EM is not a sum of E and B, then what fields do sum up to EM? According to Helmholtz there are such fields (if conditions are meet) and moreover those two fields (curl-free and divergence-free) should uniquely define EM. | |
| Mar 15, 2015 at 23:13 | comment | added | user10851 | But in CGS they have the same unit, where certainly $E^2$ is added to $B^2$ all the time. Even in SI you can just preface one or the other with enough $\mu$'s and $\epsilon$'s to make the units work. | |
| Mar 15, 2015 at 23:02 | history | answered | hft | CC BY-SA 3.0 |