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The vector nature of electromagnetic radiation.

Consider a situation where the same electrical signal is fed to two mutually perpendicular dipoles, one along the

axis and another along the

axis as shown in Figure 19.1.

**Figure 8.1:** The resultant electric field at
$\begin{figure} \epsfig{file=chapt8//f1.eps,height=1.5in} \end{figure}$

We are interested in the electric field at a distant point along the axis. The electric field is a superposition of two components

$\begin{displaymath} \vec E ( x,t) = E_y (x,t) \widehat j + E_z (x,t) \widehat k \end{displaymath}$

(8.1)

one along the

axis produced by the dipole which is aligned along the

axis, and another along the z axis produced by the dipole oriented along the

axis.

Physics 1st Year 2009-01-06