Fundamental Processes

Abstract

Ever since J.C. Maxwell formulated his unifying electromagnetic theory in 1873, the phenomenon of electromagnetic radiation has fascinated the minds of theorists as well as experimentalists. The idea of displacement currents was as radical as it was important to describe electromagnetic waves. It was only 14 years later when G. Hertz in 1887 succeeded to generate, emit, and receive again electromagnetic waves, thus, proving experimentally the existence of such waves as predicted by Maxwell’s equations. The sources of the radiation are oscillating electric charges and currents in a system of metallic wires. In this text, we discuss the generation of electromagnetic radiation emitted by free electrons from first principles involving energy and momentum conservation as well as Maxwell’s equations.