Visualizations of the integral forms of Maxwell's equations through interactive computer graphics

The author describes educational software which provides students with tools for visualizing the significance of the integral laws which underlie applied electromagnetics, and for obtaining insights into interrelationships between electric and magnetic fields and their sources. EILP, the electric integral law program, allows the student to specify positions and magnitudes of line charges using a mouse. The program computes and draws equipotential lines and electric field lines corresponding to the specified source configuration. The problem then allows the student to specify a closed surface and corresponding closed contour within the field solution, and plots accumulated normal electric flux and tangential electric field line integral as a marker makes its way around the surface/contour, demonstrating the specific implications of Gauss' law for electric field and the electroquasistatic Faraday law.<
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