Today while I was on the Internet I came across an interesting picture, that caught my eye. It's :
I don't have to explain why this picture seems interesting to someone who knows the meaning and doesn't. So here's my question:
I'm really curious as to what these equations stand for, I'm not an expert in physics, and since this picture has no name given to the equations I can't really search for this online and learn. So that's why I'm turning to you guys. I would be really glad to know the names of these equations, and maybe also the motivation (reason) of the artist to describe it in such a catchy way/meaning of this.
Best Answer
These are Maxwell's equations of classical electrodynamics in integral form. They are one way of describing light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. A more modern version of this physics joke would probably use the Lagrangian of the standard model... but you can see here why that won't make a good t-shirt: http://www.quantumdiaries.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/sm_lagrangian_UCDavis.png
As for a good textbook... the classic text is something like "the" Jackson "Classical Electrodynamics", but it won't do any good for a beginner. I would probably not even try to learn electrodynamics from a textbook, if you are interested. The better way would be to listen to an actual physics class online. MIT has Lewin's phenomenological class on electricity and magnetism online: https://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/electricity-magnetism/id341599922?mt=10#ls=1&uo=8&at=10lqkA. Something like that is a good preparation for the required theory work to understand Maxwell's equations. You could follow that up with e.g. Yale's class on electrodynamics starting here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK-BxowMIfg
I've been watching Shankar's course for a couple of minutes now... and I like it quite a bit. He is not only teaching about electricity and magnetism, but he has a lot of important things to say about the structure of physics and good physical thinking in general.