## Wednesday, December 21, 2016

### comets and their tails

why is the tail of a comet curved? and could you estimate how fast the curvature of the tail could change?

with this very christmassy question we wish all followers of CQW a merry x-mas and a happy and successful year 2017. we hope to see you again in january.

## Wednesday, December 14, 2016

### Poynting-flux and magnetic charges

in the derivation of the Poynting-theorem one needs to substitute a term $\vec{B}\mathrm{div}\vec{B}$, which is equal to zero due to the fact that the magnetic field is purely rotational, $\mathrm{div}\vec{B} = 0$. insisting to introduce magnetic charges by requiring $\mathrm{div}\vec{B} = 4\pi\rho_\mathrm{mag}$, would that lead to a violation of energy-momentum conservation? are there other arguments, e.g. from the covariance of electrodynamics, why this is not possible?

## Wednesday, December 7, 2016

### electrodynamics with non-conserved charges

following up on last week's question: could one construct a theory of electrodynamics with non-conserved charges, i.e. where $\partial^\mu\jmath_\mu\neq 0$? what consequences would that have?