The Art of Electronics

This book has numerous glowing reviews, so I will not repeat much about the book's strengths - its broad coverage, readable style, and extensive data tables. However, this is really an "electronics for scientists" type of book. I have a Ph.D in EE. I feel that more EE's should have and own such books, since they have a lot of detail that are not presented in EE texts. However, despite its encyclopedic size, this text is most suitable as a "first look" at an area in electronics and is not detailed enough in almost any area it covers if you are trying to do something new in that area. The authors make claims such as "Much of the favorite pedagogy of beginning textbooks is quite unnecessary and, in fact, is not used by practicing engineers...electronics...is basically a simple art, a combination of some basic laws, rules of thumb, and a large bag of tricks...the treatment is largely nonmathematical..." Perhaps if one is designing circuits for simpler science experiments or for some noncritical application in industry using discrete components, there is an element of truth to this. However, I do not know many EE's who can avoid a lot of mathematical analysis, particularly in designing ICs or high precision circuits, whether they do it by hand, MathCAD, or PSPICE. Although the data tables are a strength, they quickly become outdated. Perhaps it is good that equations are not emphasized because there are numerous typos - e.g. see Ex1.6c "...if you know the physics involved sigma = 6E12 W/K^4*cm^2..." - they lost the minus sign (6E-12) off the Stefan-Boltzmann constant and poor students who do not know the physics will be off by 24 orders of magnitude. The book is already too big and has many topics that are presented in too little detail - one example - this entire description of a magnetron - "The heart of radar and microwave ovens: a high power oscillator tube, full of little resonant cavities, and operated in a large magnetic field to make the electrons spiral around inside." Accurate? Yes - but what use is this abbreviated description to anyone? The authors state "We have avoided (load lines) because, well, it just isn't useful..." Again, this is true for some circuit design, but not in general, especially if working with new kinds or non-standard semiconductor devices. It is like saying that quantum mechanics is not useful to most physicists. Perhaps very few physicists do quantum mechanical calculations every day, but since it is the basis for much in the field, shouldn't one learn it, or at least not downgrade its importance?

If this is not the best (and only) entertaining book on electronics, it is at least a requirement to read of every student who wishes to learn electronics the fun way; the way it should be taught! I'm returning to it after having put it off a long time; so I'm starting from the first chapter and doing almost every excercise as I go. I find that the student manual is just as invaluable as the book. Everything seems to make perfect sense everywhere.
Has anyone worked out Excercise 1.6. My answer is 24.2 feet for power loss of 10^10 W, and aout 40000 degrees Kelvin for part C!. The solution to the puzzle is obviously to use high voltage to transmit the power so as to minimize the current. Any "feedback" ? Thank you

The book does an ok job explaining various parts of electrical engineering. Some parts break things down such that any person could understand what they are talking about. Others, you need to have a thurough understanding of circuit analysis.

Does show many good and useful circuits, but does little to help with the analysis of these circuits. There are better books out there that does a much better job overall. At best, this book makes an ok reference book

I have heard others say that this book is not for beginners, and that is probably true.

That said, if you are looking for something informative and comprehensive - this book is it. I'm an electrical engineer and though I still have all of my text books, I bought this book and use it far more often than anything else. I work at for a high-tech company and I see this book all the time on engineers' shelves - more often than any other electronics book.

This book covers many subjects and has so much useful information in it. I use it whenever I need to refresh my memory on something.

I highly recommend this book!

I bought the first edition and put my hand on this second edition as soon as it was published.
Each paragraph asks significant amount of time in the beginning, but it's worth it.
You'll find yourself analyzing virtually all the circuit that you come across!
My major is chemistry, but I have fixed all sorts of electronic appliances including my 27" TV, a control circuit for the huge analytical instruments that I had to operate at school, and so forth, and so forth...

Now I had two copies of the first edition, one of which became wore the age and gone. The remaining first edition has all the traces of my understanding and they're being transferred to the second edition that I have.
Of course I bought two copies of the second edition for the same purpose. You may want to sleep over it.
Just don't give up in the beginning as it reads really difficult in the first place. But it would pick up speed.

It's just amazing!!