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The Art of Electronics: Solutions to Exercises?

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Mati256:
Thanks Akos, I edited my post as you where replying. I was using the wrong formula.  :palm:

rstofer:
I think LTspice would become my new best friend.  Try modeling these simple circuits and keep at it as you progress.  Start now before the first step becomes overwhelming.  Get used to using the tools!

You will eventually get to a point where you are solving loop and mesh equations with complex numbers (AC circuit analysis).  These will show up in a matrix form as a solution to simultaneous equations.  I would suggest getting into some kind of math solver program.  Matlab is a candidate although I have never used mine for circuit analysis.  I would highly recommend wxMaxima (and the underlying Maxima) as your second new best friend.

Engineering in general and Electronics in particular is heavy on math.  I would recommend some kind of scientific calculator with or without graphing.  For graphing functions, it is hard to beat www.desmos.com.  https://www.symbolab.com/ is another outstanding calculator site.

Here is a pretty good introduction to electronics:
https://learn.digilentinc.com/classroom/realanalog/

Here is a thread about mesh analysis with nodal analysis thrown in
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/mesh-analysis/

That thread might be pretty interesting...

mtdoc:

--- Quote from: rstofer on February 14, 2017, 11:57:07 pm ---
You will eventually get to a point where you are solving loop and mesh equations with complex numbers (AC circuit analysis).  These will show up in a matrix form as a solution to simultaneous equations.  I would suggest getting into some kind of math solver program.  Matlab is a candidate although I have never used mine for circuit analysis.  I would highly recommend wxMaxima (and the underlying Maxima) as your second new best friend.

Engineering in general and Electronics in particular is heavy on math.

--- End quote ---

I believe the philosophy of TAOE and it's authors is to keep the math to the minimum.

From the introduction:


--- Quote ---The treatment is largely nonmathematical, with strong encouragement of circuit brainstorming and mental (or at most, back-of-the-envelope) calculation of circuit values and performance.
--- End quote ---

IMHO, this is what sets TAOE apart and the reason for its success. There are plenty of math-heavy electronics textbooks. TAOE is thankfully not one of them.

That's not to say no math is required - just that if your are spending a lot of your time solving simultaneous equations or doing loop and mesh equations with complex numbers, you are approaching TAOE wrong and will have lost much of what the book is about. Ditto for going down the rabbit hole of math software packages.  IMHO of course  :)

Also -while SPICE has its place, the authors of TAOE do not spend much time on it and I suspect would frown on the idea of leaning heavily on it as you work through their text.

rstofer:

--- Quote from: mtdoc on February 15, 2017, 04:33:54 am ---
--- Quote from: rstofer on February 14, 2017, 11:57:07 pm ---
You will eventually get to a point where you are solving loop and mesh equations with complex numbers (AC circuit analysis).  These will show up in a matrix form as a solution to simultaneous equations.  I would suggest getting into some kind of math solver program.  Matlab is a candidate although I have never used mine for circuit analysis.  I would highly recommend wxMaxima (and the underlying Maxima) as your second new best friend.

Engineering in general and Electronics in particular is heavy on math.

--- End quote ---

I believe the philosophy of TAOE and it's authors is to keep the math to the minimum.

From the introduction:


--- Quote ---The treatment is largely nonmathematical, with strong encouragement of circuit brainstorming and mental (or at most, back-of-the-envelope) calculation of circuit values and performance.
--- End quote ---

IMHO, this is what sets TAOE apart and the reason for its success. There are plenty of math-heavy electronics textbooks. TAOE is thankfully not one of them.

That's not to say no math is required - just that if your are spending a lot of your time solving simultaneous equations or doing loop and mesh equations with complex numbers, you are approaching TAOE wrong and will have lost much of what the book is about. Ditto for going down the rabbit hole of math software packages.  IMHO of course  :)

Also -while SPICE has its place, the authors of TAOE do not spend much time on it and I suspect would frown on the idea of leaning heavily on it as you work through their text.

--- End quote ---

All of that is true but...  If there are no answers given, how is the newcomer going to know if they are anywhere close.  Many texts have answers for the odd problems, some have separate books where the answer to odd problems is fully explained.

For the last 3 semesters I have been helping my grandson with math.  To the maximum extent possible, we check answers with the textbook and or some computer solutions.  In some cases web sites are all it takes.  Sometimes it takes a bit of Maxima and, on a few occasions, a wee bit of Fortran.  There is just as much learning is coming up with answers - but only after doing the work by hand.

My goal is to demonstrate that there is always another way..

mtdoc:

--- Quote from: rstofer on February 15, 2017, 06:04:17 am ---

All of that is true but...  If there are no answers given, how is the newcomer going to know if they are anywhere close.  Many texts have answers for the odd problems, some have separate books where the answer to odd problems is fully explained.
--- End quote ---

Yes, but TAOE is not like the many other electronics textbooks out there. It is really not about the exercises.  Yes, the early chapters have exercises scattered here and there throughout the text and some of those chapters have a page of exercises at the end of the chapter. But they are not calculation heavy and are meant more to get one thinking in the right direction . Whether they get the answer exactly right is less important IMHO.

Most of the later chapters have few or no exercises.  It's just not that kind of textbook (thankfully!).

If it's important to one to have someone tell them their answer for one of the relatively few exercises is correct then there's plenty of forums - including this one - where someone will oblige.

But if you delve into lots of math, SPICE, or math software packages in order to answer the exercises you're far off track from how TAOE is meant to be used.  IMO if they'd meant it to be used that way, there'd be a lot more math heavy exercises all through the book with answers available, etc. - just like the scores of other electronics text books out there.

Granted, this approach is not for everyone. For those who like lots of math and lots of exercises with concrete, easily verifiable numeric answers you have many good choices of textbooks. 

Personally, from a pedagogical perspective, I think Horowitz and Hill get it just right.  But  it's horses for courses - of course!


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