Changing E and B

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In this conversation we will attempt to go into the depths of students' understanding of electromagnetism and try to unlock, or at least loosen, a common mindset of Science and Engineering students. We have already had a conversation on electric, E, and magnetic, B, fields. Taking this to the next stage, a common sentence found in many Physics and Mathematics textbooks is  "a changing electric field creates a changing magnetic field and vice versa". Is this correct? Does the changing electric field itself actually create a changing magnetic field (and vice versa) ?

Michael Minovitch's Great Discovery

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Most Physics and Mathematics students would not be aware of the American mathematician Michael Minovitch (1936- ). While a graduate student at UCLA in 1961 he used the IBM 7090 computer, the most powerful computer at that time, to numerically solve the three body problem, this problem being the movement of three bodies due to their mutual gravitational attraction. This is a very difficult problem, so difficult that Isaac Newton said that it "made his head ache". Minovitch applied his technique to the case of a spacecraft approaching from behind close to a planet orbiting the Sun and found that after the close approach the speed of the spacecraft was increased relative to the Sun. This encounter did not require the use of any extra fuel and this procedure is now known as the sling shot effect or a gravity assist manoeuvre.

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