Electromagnetism, Fall 2016

Instructor: Yih-Yuh Chen

Assignment 5

This assignment is due 12pm, Wednesday, November 30, 2016.

1. (20 points) Consider a function ( ) whose Taylor expansion about the origin is
X
( ) =

for some constants . We will consider the Laplacian of at the origin in this
problem.

(a) Explain why

2 | = 2(20 + 02 )
(b) Please compute
( 0) + ( 0) + (0 ) + (0 ) 4(0 0)
lim
0 2
(Its geometrical meaning should be clear from Fig. 1 below.) Is it equal to the
expression of (a)?

Fig. 1
(c) Let
(0 0 ) (0 cos 0 sin 0 cos + 0 sin )
for some number . Please show that
( 0) + ( 0) + (0 ) + (0 ) 4 (0 0)
lim
0 2

1
 is the same as the answer of Part (b), that is, it is independent of the value of !
What message do you think this problem is trying to get across you?
(d) One can define the following expression for the angular average of as
R R 2 R 2
circle of radius
0

() = = 0
2 2 2
Please explain why the results of (a)-(d) imply
4
2 2

This then agrees with the direct derivation we did in class.

2. Griths Problem 2.38. (Page 102)

3. Griths Problem 2.39. (Page 102)

4. Griths Problem 2.40. (Page 103)

2
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