John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Introduction
Some years ago I declared to my colleagues that I would never, ever, write a first year textbook. So what happened?
What happened was that I could find no textbooks appropriate to the 20-lecture course on circuits that I was teaching. Why? There were many reasons. Most texts were far too large, heavy and expensive: 1000 pages? 2 kg? £70? No thanks. Many were devoted exclusively to linear circuit theory, ignoring the many useful circuits that my students would later encounter. Some decided to teach some of the mathematics required: but my mathematics colleagues do that far better than I. Others decided to treat the underlying physics: I prefer to make a well-defined start with the relations imposed on currents and voltages by components and connections (otherwise, where do you stop? Back emf? Schrodinger’s equation?). Some authors are exhaustive (and exhausting): is it really necessary to teach mesh analysis (which no one uses) to students who are not going to be dedicated circuit theorists in later life? So I prepared and modified my own ‘handout’ notes which, eventually, started looking like the book I had been searching for. What you have in your hand is essentially those notes, supplemented by quite a number of worked examples which students always find useful and always request. At the end of each chapter I have included useful problems with a selection of answers. The remaining solutions can be found on a companion website at E45.org circuit. I used to teach mainstream electrical engineering undergraduates and I now teach non-EE students, specifically those pursuing a course in Biomedical Engineering. It may well be, therefore, that the book is particularly suited to ‘non-EE’ first-year students, though I suspect that it may still be useful as a supporting text for mainstream EE undergraduates.
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