Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism with an Experimental Focus¶

Course Overview¶

• Institution: MIT
• Course code: 8.02X
• Track: Physics Foundations
• Tier: A
• Role: Mainline
• Level: Not standardized by provider (use prerequisites)
• Last reviewed: 2026-07-28

MIT's Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism with an Experimental Focus connects electromagnetic theory and measurement through notes, practice, exams, and nine experiments, with supervised conditions required for the physical work.

Why choose this course

Mainline course. A reliable option that can serve as a main course or strong alternative.

Before you start

• Recommended foundation: Engineering Mathematics

Verifiable learning outcomes

• Explain the core models in Physics Foundations, including their assumptions and limits
• Solve representative derivations and problems, checking units, limiting cases, or numerical results
• Complete a reproducible experiment or implementation with raw data, parameters, versions, and verification

Workload and pacing

13 weeks at 11 hours/week. This maintainer planning estimate is derived from course role and the density of public practice and labs; it is not a provider workload promise. Pilot two weeks while logging instruction, practice, lab, and review time, then adjust the remaining plan when actual effort differs by more than 25%.

Safety level

Qualified supervision required. Physical work may involve high energy, strong fields, RF, lasers, chemicals, or fabrication equipment; use a compliant facility with qualified supervision.

Course Resources¶

Software, hardware, and cost

Software

• Maintainer-suggested open-source/free verification path: Python 3, Jupyter, SciPy, Matplotlib, and VPython
• The resource inventory does not list public code coverage; the tools above are only a maintainer-suggested independent check, not a provider requirement

Hardware

• The resource inventory lists lab coverage; prefer borrowing or sharing the following equipment: low-voltage sensors, a data-acquisition interface, and basic measurement tools explicitly listed by the course lab manual. Verify ratings, authorization, and safety conditions only after the provider lab manual explicitly calls for them

Cost note

The suggested software stack is available open source or free; this is not a provider requirement or bill of materials. The actual boards, components, fabrication, and instruments—and their costs—depend on the provider lab manual, region, and local availability; prefer simulation, borrowing, or sharing before purchase.

Public resource coverage

Resources and access

“Listed by official page” means the link was discovered on a successfully fetched official source on the verification date; it does not guarantee that every region or account can open the target directly. Access does not grant redistribution rights. Re-check the provider page, target link, and third-party notices before downloading, adapting, or publishing material.

Practice and Verification¶

Practice loop

Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism with an Experimental Focus · MIT 8.02X: Conservation-Law Digital Experiment

This is a maintainer-suggested self-study project for Physics II: Electricity and Magnetism with an Experimental Focus · MIT 8.02X, not an official course assignment. Create a numerical experiment for a dynamics, field, wave, or quantum model from Physics Foundations and audit it using conservation quantities, symmetries, and scaling laws.

Origin: Maintainer-suggested project

Deliverables

• A model specification containing equations, initial and boundary conditions, units, and nondimensional parameters
• An executable solver with at least two time-step or mesh-resolution configurations
• Raw data and plots for conserved quantities, phase or field distributions, and convergence rate
• A report comparing an analytic or approximate baseline and locating numerical dissipation, dispersion, or boundary reflections

Verification

• Keep the primary conserved-quantity drift below 1% over the nominal run or explain the discretization error
• Halve the mesh or time step and record the observed convergence slope against the expected order
• Cross-check at least five observables with dimensional analysis and one analytic limit
• Apply an unstable step size or incorrect boundary, capture the divergence point, and demonstrate failure diagnostics

Reproducibility

• Commit versioned model, solver, test, plotting, and equation-source files
• Pin solver versions, precision, mesh-generation parameters, and execution commands
• Preserve raw field data, logs, and checksums and generate the report through the same pipeline

Safety boundary: Simulation only — Use numerical experiments only; do not construct moving machinery, strong-field, high-voltage, vacuum, laser, or radiation apparatus.

Risks, gaps, and boundaries

Nine experiments include high-voltage and electrical-breakdown work; require explicit safety gating and supervision.

Completion evidence

• Weekly learning log with time, questions, corrected errors, decisions, next steps, and links to that week's reproducible artifacts
• Theory dossier with explicit assumptions, notation, derivation, units, and boundary conditions, checked by at least one independent method
• Simulation package with model or netlist, inputs, solver and version, parameter-sweep script, benchmark comparison, expected results, and one rerun command
• Experiment package with schematic/setup, calibration record, raw data, uncertainty, safety checks, failed runs, and steps to rebuild plots from raw data