Author Topic: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!  (Read 9269 times)

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Offline Terry01Topic starter

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The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« on: December 26, 2019, 04:25:13 pm »
I have been wanting this book for a while now as i have seen it recommended by a few older heads over the couple of years I have been trying to teach myself electronics. I have been doing this by watching YouTube videos and reading from various forums and groups and also reading books and things like that. As anyone who is qualified in any of the various electronics fields will know, this can be very  challenging at times.
Building kits and stuff is ok but I want to know what the different components are doing and why they are doing it rather than just following numbered instructions kinda like "dot 2 dot". Even though copying the circuits on YouTube and stuff is cool when they work it's still not properly learning.

I got this book from Santa and haven't been able to put it down! I am only a tiny bit into the book, it's huge! I can already tell this is what I've been looking for to teach me the things I want to know. It's awesome and starts out as though you know nothing which is great.

The reason I made this post is I think this will be a great book for beginners to get and even the guys who know some things but not everything when building circuits. The way it is set out you can go to a particular part or component and it explains all about how and why that part works the way it does.

I would highly recommend it!  :-+
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Offline LateLesley

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2019, 05:15:15 pm »
I agree, I just recently picked up a second edition copy for the pricely sum of £6.81. It's a rather battered copy, ex library book, but it's in good enough condition, all the info is good, and that's what is important to me. It is a monster book, but the info contained within for beginners, is priceless. I'm looking forward to building some circuits i have ideas for, using it as a reference for the building block circuits like current mirrors, Voltage-Controlled Oscillators, Voltage controlled amplifiers, and filters. It's packed full of useful circuits, and descriptions of how they work.

I second the recommendation.
 

Offline rstofer

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2019, 05:23:32 pm »
Don't forget the lab manual "Learning the Art of Electronics" and the soon to be released "X Chapters" (Amazon is taking pre-orders).
You can read all you want but you won't really understand electronics until it is on a breadboard and you can probe it with a DMM or scope.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-x-Chapters/dp/1108499945
« Last Edit: December 26, 2019, 05:36:15 pm by rstofer »
 
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Offline Tom45

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2019, 05:27:04 pm »
I agree, I just recently picked up a second edition copy for the princely sum of £6.81. It's a rather battered copy, ex library book, but it's in good enough condition, all the info is good, and that's what is important to me.

This prompts the idea that those of us that have purchased new editions of the Art of Electronics have old editions that we don't use any more. There are beginners with not a lot of money that could benefit from the old editions. Certainly the old editions are still useful. At least until Ohm's law is repealed.

How to connect the unused old editions with those that could use them?
 
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Offline james_s

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #4 on: December 26, 2019, 05:32:09 pm »
Other than posting them in the FS section here, you could list them on amazon or ebay. Books can legitimately be sent via media mail which is quite cheap.
 

Offline rstofer

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #5 on: December 26, 2019, 05:38:17 pm »
They might also be available on Alibris.com  I buy a lot of used books at that site.
A used copy of "The Art of Electronics" can be quite reasonable:

https://www.alibris.com/The-Art-of-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/book/430170


"Learning the Art of Electronics" is not reasonable:

https://www.alibris.com/Learning-the-Art-of-Electronics-A-Hands-on-Lab-Course-Thomas-C-Hayes/book/33493167
« Last Edit: December 26, 2019, 05:42:52 pm by rstofer »
 

Offline LateLesley

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #6 on: December 26, 2019, 06:22:19 pm »

This prompts the idea that those of us that have purchased new editions of the Art of Electronics have old editions that we don't use any more. There are beginners with not a lot of money that could benefit from the old editions. Certainly the old editions are still useful. At least until Ohm's law is repealed.

How to connect the unused old editions with those that could use them?

It's exactly the position i'm in, I don't work due to some pretty bad discrimination, and poor mental health resulting from it. So I'm on state support, and very limited funds. Thus why I hunted out a bargain.

For UK peeps, who don't mind a battered copy on a budget, I got mine from here. https://www.anybook.biz/search/#results
Just put ISBN number 9780521370950 or 0521370957 for the 2nd edition, at budget prices. :)
 
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Offline MarkF

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #7 on: December 26, 2019, 06:42:08 pm »
You can actually download the 3rd (2015) version here:

   https://archive.org/details/TheArtOfElectronics3rdEd2015/page/n3
 
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Online tggzzz

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #8 on: December 26, 2019, 07:11:44 pm »
Win Hill is not "inaccessible". See the Usenet group sci.electronics.design, or https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/the-art-of-electronics-x-chapters/msg2252613/#msg2252613
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Online MiDi

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #9 on: December 26, 2019, 07:16:47 pm »
Maybe not the first choice for beginners, but highly recommended :-+
Had it under the Christmas tree too - beside other stuff.

 
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Offline Johnboy

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #10 on: December 26, 2019, 07:58:33 pm »
Disclaimer: I have no formal training in electronics or physics. I think it's important to note that this book's intended audience were originally a class made up of physics graduate students, inasmuch as the preface states that the book presupposes no prior knowledge of the subject. I would not consider it a primer for newcomers to the sciences.

My main reservation regarding TAOE (as a standalone text, anyway) is that the first chapter is almost deceptively easy  for a complete neophyte to assimilate and after that it becomes quite a bit more challenging. I have the second edition and found the companion lab manual essential for my being able to follow the main text, as it tends to expand on things the main text addresses only in passing. This companion volume for the second edition is titled "Student Manual for the Art of Electronics" (ISBN 0-521-37709-9).

The newest third edition of TAOE also has a companion volume of its own, "Learning The Art of Electronics" in addition to the X-Chapters. I have not looked at either of these myself, but I imagine the former provides the same function as the second edition manual, and the X-Chapters pick up whatever they couldn't fit into the main text at publication.

They might also be available on Alibris.com  I buy a lot of used books at that site.

How to connect the unused old editions with those that could use them?

Donating still-valuable older editions of a given text to your local library is a great idea, as many libraries will cooperate in transferring books. This is especially good if you've already replaced your book with an updated newer edition. If we don't use these sources, they're going to vanish. With all the PDF's proliferating out there, there's no substitute for a physical book in my hands, although it's often better to look at one to see what I'm getting before purchasing it. PDF's are often missing graphics, contain errors the print versions lack, etc. Below I've justified slightly derailing this thread to show how textbooks like TAOE can be acquired on the cheap.

DERAILMENT:

I have used Alibris, but there are also many other book search engines out there. It is sometimes surprising how a "rare" used book selling on Amazon for several hundred dollars can be found for pocket change on other sites if you actually take the time to search. Used booksellers generally have such an enormous inventory that keeping up with current pricing trends on an individual book is too time-consuming to be worth the trouble in most cases. I've learned to take advantage of this, as I've collected primers as fast as I can read them. Here's how I've saved quite a bit on books in general:

Amazon
Amazon often has competitive pricing on used books, but one of the site's most useful features is that they include the ISBN of a given edition. The ISBN will also change if you select different bindings (hardcover/softcover). Write down both 13 digit ISBN and 10-digit ISBN for each; they're not only different numbers from time to time, but occasionally you will only find one or the other that links to a given listing by a bookseller.

WorldCat
This allows you to search for individual books held by libraries all over the world, and in many cases it will show all ISBN's for every single edition of a given title, as well as for "teacher's editions" you'd otherwise never know existed. Lab manuals, too. Also, WorldCat will allow you to search the libraries near you to find a copy on the shelf (and if you're a student, often you can get a PDF for free from said libraries to your .edu address).

Abebooks.com
This bookseller search site often lists books (sometimes even the same actual copy listed on Amazon) for less. The suggested method is to click on the "advanced search" link at top right of their homepage and then search by ISBN's as gathered above. I have also had success in clicking on the bookseller's link and contacting them directly to make an offer (the Mom & Pop type stores, anyway). You might be surprised how often this works, as many of these merchants really only pay storage overhead and the books are essentially free to them when considering their outlay for buying hundreds or thousands at a time; anything over the cost of shipping is profit as far as they are concerned and the only hassle is digging through the stacks to find what you want.

Google
A gimme, right? After all, they have a built-in shopping feature. Nah. Again, searching by ISBN often turns up listings from bookstores you've never heard of and will never see again in subsequent searches for other books. I recommend keeping a list of ISBN's handy for books you want, as many of these places are expensive to ship from but will offer a special deal if you order multiple books in a single order.

Bookfinder.com
This is for extremely rare books that you can find nowhere else and don't mind paying through the nose for. If all other attempts to locate a given ISBN fail, this site will generally turn up at least one copy available somewhere in the world, often at surreal high prices. And you thought the eBay sellers were optimists? Welcome to the rare editions market.


Edited to show justification for derailment.
« Last Edit: December 26, 2019, 08:44:14 pm by Johnboy »
 

Offline anvoice

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #11 on: December 26, 2019, 10:16:02 pm »
In my humble opinion, The Art of Electronics is not the best "first" Electronics book. I picked it up and put it down soon after when I realized I don't understand many of the concepts it details. For example, the Thevenin theorem for linear circuits is glossed over in a "yeah, we stated it, you probably get the rest" manner. While I have seen almost nothing but positive reviews of TAOE and believe it is probably a great book for the advanced enthusiast, it's not really a primer. Unless you want to memorize a lot about circuits and their elements without a detailed understanding of how the mathematics work and how the models are derived.
Personally, I can't wait to start reading it again, but not until I've got a couple of intermediate level courses under my belt.
 

Offline rstofer

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #12 on: December 27, 2019, 12:03:13 am »
In my humble opinion, The Art of Electronics is not the best "first" Electronics book. I picked it up and put it down soon after when I realized I don't understand many of the concepts it details. For example, the Thevenin theorem for linear circuits is glossed over in a "yeah, we stated it, you probably get the rest" manner. While I have seen almost nothing but positive reviews of TAOE and believe it is probably a great book for the advanced enthusiast, it's not really a primer. Unless you want to memorize a lot about circuits and their elements without a detailed understanding of how the mathematics work and how the models are derived.
Personally, I can't wait to start reading it again, but not until I've got a couple of intermediate level courses under my belt.

I agree, there are probably better resources.  One example is the Electrical Engineering program at Khan Academy, another is the "Real Analog" series at Digilent.  These are classroom type programs but both have outside material in the way of quizzes and handouts.  Digilent's program revolves around their Analog Discovery 2 so there are a lot of lab experiments.

Don't forget, AoT is used at MIT for some level and most of us aren't at that level.  Maybe the kids just 'get it' by osmosis or something.

Ohm's Law, Kirchhoff's Law, Thevenin and Norton's Theorems are vitally important, they must be well understood.  Real Analog does a great job and so does Khan Academy.

You can also find 'hit or miss' videos on YouTube.  I'm not as satisfied with these because they are not usually part of a progressive program.  A one-off on Kirchhoff's Current Law simply isn't interesting.  It needs to be part of a progression.

Now, once you get to AC circuits, the math gets intense.  You have the choices of 1) ignore the math, understand the solution; 2) learn the math and really understand the solution or 3) skip AC circuits altogether or put them off for another day.  Nobody wants to mess with differential equations if they struggled with Algebra.  You can go a long way without knowing the derivations for this stuff.

Pay attention to Dave's Fundamentals Friday videos and w2aew has a terrific site.

In the end, it's what you learn on a breadboard that counts.  All the math in the world won't replace actually seeing a trace on a scope or a measurement with a DMM.

To see Kirchhoff's Current Law in action, watch Dave's Op Amp video:



« Last Edit: December 27, 2019, 12:06:11 am by rstofer »
 

Offline Terry01Topic starter

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #13 on: December 27, 2019, 12:18:10 am »
I've only just started reading it and find myself getting onto google if there is something I don't quite understand. Now I know it has a companion book for this I will get that too for sure.
I fall under the very little experience category so there will be things that fly right over me head for sure! I am in the position to be able to play around with things as they are taught until I get it. I can't work for medical reasons so have plenty time on my hands to devote until I get it.
I paid £55 for my copy new and think it was £50 well spent, well the Mrs paid £50 so all good. I will defo be looking out for it's partner book. I have a feeling that even although I spend every spare minute reading it will take me a very long time to get through. There is also the time it takes you to breadboard or whatever particular part you are on as I also get things better if I actually build them than I do just reading about them.
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Offline mcovington

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #14 on: December 27, 2019, 04:52:16 am »
You can actually download the 3rd (2015) version here:

   https://archive.org/details/TheArtOfElectronics3rdEd2015/page/n3

Not a legitimate, legal distribution, in case someone had not guessed this.
« Last Edit: December 27, 2019, 04:56:59 am by mcovington »
 

Offline Mechatrommer

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #15 on: December 27, 2019, 06:20:23 am »
You can actually download the 3rd (2015) version here:
   https://archive.org/details/TheArtOfElectronics3rdEd2015/page/n3
Not a legitimate, legal distribution, in case someone had not guessed this.
thats my guess... i've been browsing aoe 3rd now and then in ebay, sometime it expensive sometime ok... i just dont have the gut yet to hit that buy button. 3 books now, the main, lab course, and now X version, the cheapest i guesstimate is $200 for all. to make sure it will be worth a buy, or for really tight budget students, there are currently ebay seller selling the pdf version for $2.50 for the main and lab course version (you can bet its not legit as well). but/so we can evaluate if its much different from aoe 2nd. i can print the 1220 pages on A4 and cheap ink easy, but if the contents are worth it, nothing will beat real hardcover copy.

In my humble opinion, The Art of Electronics is not the best "first" Electronics book. I picked it up and put it down soon after when I realized I don't understand many of the concepts it details. For example, the Thevenin theorem for linear circuits is glossed over in a "yeah, we stated it, you probably get the rest" manner. While I have seen almost nothing but positive reviews of TAOE and believe it is probably a great book for the advanced enthusiast, it's not really a primer. Unless you want to memorize a lot about circuits and their elements without a detailed understanding of how the mathematics work and how the models are derived.
Personally, I can't wait to start reading it again, but not until I've got a couple of intermediate level courses under my belt.
one book will never be enough. there's a whole chapter just for thevenin, norton, phasor, Z-transform and all those abstracts matters. if you want that belt, a book for 1st semester ee course may suits you (basic in electric and electronics) but they wont touch practical circuits, you are not going to like them in their entirety anyway, even though they are as thick as aoe. if you read about a particular knowledge and you seems not to have a clue or very difficult to understand it, then we need to go back one step down the road, ie read more basic/elementary knowledge, until they all fit together nicely (like a puzzle). i keep telling that to myself.

cheers,
owner of aoe 2nd, india/asia version.
(and never finished reading it)
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Offline mark03

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #16 on: December 27, 2019, 06:32:46 am »
Don't forget, AoT is used at MIT for some level and most of us aren't at that level.  Maybe the kids just 'get it' by osmosis or something.
[...]
Now, once you get to AC circuits, the math gets intense.  You have the choices of 1) ignore the math, understand the solution; 2) learn the math and really understand the solution or 3) skip AC circuits altogether or put them off for another day.  Nobody wants to mess with differential equations if they struggled with Algebra.  You can go a long way without knowing the derivations for this stuff.

Funny, my problem is always the opposite!  PhD in EE but never learned circuit design beyond the required undergrad classes.  I have AoE but as soon as they get into circuits with more than one transistor, I get lost.  They start making these offhand comments right and left...  and I'm like, wait, why is that true?  I can't see it!  Lots of stuff they seem to assume is obvious, but it's not to me.  I figure the only way to really learn this stuff well is to apprentice with someone who already knows it.

BTW, archive.org (The Internet Archive) would never intentionally host a bootleg copy of the text.  Maybe they have permission?
 

Online tggzzz

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #17 on: December 27, 2019, 08:55:34 am »
BTW, archive.org (The Internet Archive) would never intentionally host a bootleg copy of the text.  Maybe they have permission?

I have no idea of the source of that copy.

Win Hill did make a pdf version available via his dropbox account. The last time I searched for the URL, the book was still there.

No, I'm not going to publicise the dropbox URL. If Win wants to make the pdf easily accessible, he has a website available :)

And, for the record, I have paper copies of TAoE I, TAoE III, and soon TAoE III-x.
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
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Offline Mechatrommer

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #18 on: December 27, 2019, 12:46:02 pm »
quickly skimp the aoe3 chapters... dont donate your aoe2 just yet, some chapters are not in aoe3...
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/the-art-of-electronics-3rd-edition-considered-incomplete/msg2846062/#msg2846062
and since some figures/sub chapters are removed, they will be lost along with your aoe2 if you do..
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Offline mcovington

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #19 on: December 27, 2019, 05:15:36 pm »
BTW, archive.org (The Internet Archive) would never intentionally host a bootleg copy of the text.  Maybe they have permission?

That is a very good point.  Maybe it was some kind of temporary release that was accidentally left up, or something.
 

Offline mcovington

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #20 on: December 27, 2019, 05:19:58 pm »
Definitely keep, or get, the older editions if you can!   The first edition (1981?) is more accessible to beginners than the later ones, and it has some amusing features such as "Bad Circuits."

I got the first edition in 1982 and it was career-changing.  At last, an electronics book about how to build things, rather than how to construct differential equations!  It was written at just the right time, after the proliferation of ICs.  Ten years earlier it couldn't have been done.  Forty years later it is hardly out of date -- we still have everything that's in it, although we also have newer things.

The third edition is definitely not a textbook.  For that you want "Learning the Art of Electronics" (its lab manual), which is a fine book.  "The Art of Electronics" itself is more a compendium of more advanced discussion.  And then the X Chapters are more advanced than that.

"The Art of Electronics" reminds me of "Radiotron Designer's Handbook" (proud product of Australia!), which guided engineers through the vacuum tube era and, like AoE, was full of practical information that was hard to get anywhere else.
 

Offline mcovington

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #21 on: December 27, 2019, 05:26:23 pm »
Ohm's Law, Kirchhoff's Law, Thevenin and Norton's Theorems are vitally important, they must be well understood.

Amen!  One thing everybody needs drummed into them is that Ohm's law is not a set of formulas for calculating things, it is how electricity works.

Voltage is the force that drives a current through a resistance.

Ohm's law IS electricity.

From there, Kirchhoff is easy and Thevenin and Norton are straightforward.
 

Offline rstofer

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #22 on: December 27, 2019, 05:34:47 pm »
Skip the books or put them off for later.

Start here:  https://www.khanacademy.org/science/electrical-engineering#introduction-to-ee

It's not a full curriculum but it's a heck of a start.  Just making it through Circuit Analysis would put a newcomer at the head of the class.

If the math gets out of hand, start here: https://www.khanacademy.org/math

Remember, it takes 4 or 5 years to get a basic knowledge of electronics.  Nothing of any practical value will be taught, you just have to grind through the fundamentals.  But, given the fundamentals, it is possible to pick up data sheets and white papers and work through the examples.

You will find that there is a lot of hand waving in circuit analysis.  "It works like this, more or less..." where exact answers aren't required.
 

Online tggzzz

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #23 on: December 27, 2019, 06:01:18 pm »
You can actually download the 3rd (2015) version here:

   https://archive.org/details/TheArtOfElectronics3rdEd2015/page/n3

Not a legitimate, legal distribution, in case someone had not guessed this.

Both that PDF and the PDF that Win Hill publicised in his dropbox account are 29MB in size. For the avoidance of doubt, Win Hill is one of the authors of TAoE :)
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
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Online tggzzz

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Re: The Art Of Electronics book is awesome!
« Reply #24 on: December 27, 2019, 06:11:23 pm »
Ohm's Law, Kirchhoff's Law, Thevenin and Norton's Theorems are vitally important, they must be well understood.

Amen!  One thing everybody needs drummed into them is that Ohm's law is not a set of formulas for calculating things, it is how electricity works.

Voltage is the force that drives a current through a resistance.

Ohm's law IS electricity.

Er, no - look at the definition of Ohms Law :) Let's take a few simple examples...

Ohms law describes a linear relationship between voltage and current; most materials (including components like resistors) are not linear.

Ohms law does not describe what happens inside a capacitor.

Ohms law does not describe how, say, microstrip filters operate.

There are many other examples, but that is sufficient.

If you want to consider fundamentals, you have to consider the electric fields and magnetic fields, starting with Maxwell's equations. Current, voltage and resistance are merely a convenient simplification of part of Maxwell's equations.
There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and ADC/DAC specs.
Glider pilot's aphorism: "there is no substitute for span". Retort: "There is a substitute: skill+imagination. But you can buy span".
Having fun doing more, with less
 
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