In this DG, Sam Playle will give us an introduction to some of the mathematical aspects of classical and quantum electromagnetism. These beautiful theories were some of the motivating examples behind the study of gauge theories whereby considerations of the local symmetries of a field theory give rise to conservation laws. Due to the work of Atiyah and Donaldson these ideas in fact had a number of surprising applications to mathematics, in particular on the topology of 4-manifolds. If this gets your electrons excited then come along to MS.05 at 7:30 to hear more.