Electromagnetic Snacks

Abstract

This article is based on a talk given on occasion of the presentation of my new textbook Electromagnetismo Elemental during the 101st Annual Meeting of the Argentine Physical Association in Tucum ́an (October 2016). It presents a series of poignant questions formulated by students interested in the why of things in physics, during my many decades of teaching and seminars on this subject, and it elaborates on the answers I remember having given to each. These questions deal with some very basic issues of classical electromagnetism which, however, are not usually discussed in textbooks—including my own.