Physicist Wayne Saslow from Texas A&M University observed that some important new applications were added to the text, such as fiber optics and dielectric waveguides, which are crucial in modern communications technology, and synchrotron light sources, responsible for advances in condensed-matter physics, and that fragments of the excised chapter on magnetohydrodynamics and plasma physics were scattered throughout the text. Saslow argued that Jackson's broad background in electrical engineering, nuclear and high-energy physics served him well in writing this book.