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Physicists conclude that electrostatics can be described
by the two conditions:![]()
E
= 0, ![]()
E
=
.
No sources or sinks of Magnetic Field lines; and Ampere's Law.
We can immediately translate the statement that magnetic fields have no sources
or sinks into the statement:![]()
B
= 0, since, (again by the divergence theorem,)
we know that sources and sinks correspond to non-vanishing divergence.
You are probably familiar with the Biot-Savart Law which describes the magnetic field produced by an electrical current element.
Ampere's Law states that, for constant current flow, the flux of electrical current through a surface is proportional to the line integral of the magnetic field (counterclockwise) around its boundary:
![]()
Stokes' Theorem, applied to B, gives
![]()
Upon combining these two we obtain, for any surface S:
![]()
from which physicists conclude the differential equations of steady state current flow:
![]()
B
= j / c, ![]()
B
= 0