Electronic Textbook of Electromagnetic Waves

Abstract

Teaching university courses, which deal with the phenomena of the electromagnetic (EM) substantiality and their applications, is rather difficult due to their abstract nature. Therefore, teaching has to be accompanied by clear explanations and by simulations illustrating the examined topics. This is why an electronic textbook (ET) of EM waves and applications was developed. The ET presents theoretical descriptions of selected EM phenomena on two levels - on a bachelor's one and a master's one. Descriptive parts of the ET are completed by computer programs, which enable the reader to simulate the studied phenomena. Moreover, the ET explains the practical implementation of simulation routines in MATLAB, which helps students to understand a relationship between rather complicated mathematics and a relatively simple source code of its software implementation. Since the ET is freely accessible on the web, students can use it whenever as a classical textbook, a handbook or a software package. This fact positively influences the students' knowledge and understanding as proven by our experience.