Why Accelerating Charges Radiate

How can an accelerating charge create light? In this video, we build an intuitive geometric picture of electromagnetic radiation using only Coulomb’s law, relativity, and simple field-line arguments, without starting from Maxwell’s equations. Inspired by the beautiful argument presented in Electricity and Magnetism by Edward M. Purcell and David J. Morin (3rd edition, Cambridge University Press). This video is a visual exploration of the idea, with my own explanations, animations, and extensions. Chapters: 0:00 Hook 0:14 The Three Rules 3:04 The Field-Line Experiment 5:53 Deriving the Radiation Field 7:40 Visualizing the Electric Field 8:28 Why Radiation Travels Far 10:46 The Origin of Light 11:48 The Relativistic Case 12:58 Conclusion Reference: E. M. Purcell & D. J. Morin, Electricity and Magnetism, 3rd Edition, Cambridge University Press (2013), Chapter 11.