section_path: Physics/Theory/Near and far fields
section_name: Near and far fields
paragraph_text: Near and far fields
  
  Maxwell's equations established that some charges and currents (sources) produce local electromagnetic fields near them that do not radiate. Currents directly produce magnetic fields, but such fields of a magnetic-dipole –type that dies out with distance from the current. In a similar manner, moving charges pushed apart in a conductor by a changing electrical potential (such as in an antenna) produce an electric-dipole –type electrical field, but this also declines with distance. These fields make up the near field. Neither of these behaviours is responsible for EM radiation. Instead, they only efficiently transfer energy to a receiver very close to the source, such as inside a transformer. The near field has strong effects its source, with any energy withdrawn by a receiver causing increased load (decreased electrical reactance) on the source. The near field does not propagate freely into space, carrying energy away without a distance limit, but rather oscillates, returning its energy to the transmitter if it is not absorbed by a receiver.
  
  By contrast, the far field is composed of radiation that is free of the transmitter, in the sense that the transmitter requires the same power to send changes in the field out regardless of whether anything absorbs the signal, e.g. a radio station does not need to increase its power when more receivers use the signal. This far part of the electromagnetic field is electromagnetic radiation. The far fields propagate (radiate) without allowing the transmitter to affect them. This causes them to be independent in the sense that their existence and their energy, after they have left the transmitter, is completely independent of both transmitter and receiver. Due to conservation of energy, the amount of power passing through any spherical surface drawn around the source is the same. Because such a surface has an area proportional to the square of its distance from the source, the power density of EM radiation from an isotropic source decreases with the inverse square of the distance from the source; this is called the inverse-square law. This is in contrast to dipole parts of the EM field, the near field, which varies in intensity according to an inverse cube power law, and thus does not transport a conserved amount of energy over distances but instead fades with distance, with its energy (as noted) rapidly returning to the transmitter or absorbed by a nearby receiver (such as a transformer secondary coil).
  
  In the Liénard–Wiechert potential formulation of the electric and magnetic fields due to motion of a single particle (according to Maxwell's equations), the terms associated with acceleration of the particle are those that are responsible for the part of the field that is regarded as electromagnetic radiation. By contrast, the term associated with the changing static electric field of the particle and the magnetic term that results from the particle's uniform velocity are both associated with the near field, and do not comprise electromagnetic radiation.