Short Answer
Medium difficulty • Direct answer format
Question 1
Quick RecallWhat inconsistency did Maxwell notice in Ampere's circuital law, and what did he propose to remove it?
- When Ampere's law was applied to a charging capacitor using different surfaces with the same boundary, it gave different values of magnetic field at the same external point — a clear contradiction.
- Maxwell proposed an additional term called displacement current (iₐ = ε₀ dΦ_E/dt), arising from a time-varying electric flux, to be added to the total current in Ampere's law.
- With this addition, the total current (conduction + displacement) gives the same consistent magnetic field regardless of which surface is chosen, removing the inconsistency.