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Quan Chi2 - Thu Apr 12, 2007 10:47 pm
Post subject: Electrical Engineering ebooks?

Can any of you please recommend any good introductions to electrical engineering that I may read on my computer? Any books that will give me a good intro to EE that I can go out and buy?

I'm talking about books for beginners with no knowledge of the subject. I'm already reading the wikibook on EE and it's pretty understandable. However, it's short.

Animate Dreams - Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:15 pm
Post subject:

You should post a link to the wikibook, as well.

Mine GO BOOM - Thu Apr 12, 2007 11:52 pm
Post subject:

What college are you hoping to get into? Go to their website and find one of the EE courses they have, probably a 100 or 200 level, whatever would be required for your specific major. Find the syllabus and see what book they are using.

Bonus would be around September, if you could, audit one of the EE courses if a college is close to you. No EE course I ever took would take attendance, because they know if you don't show up, you will fail. If you are worried, just email the professor before hand saying you'd like to audit the course. 90% of the time, they'll say sure, just as long as you don't hand in homework/take the tests.

What level of math are you comfortable with? If you can to integrals and work with imaginary numbers, you can get a more advanced book. If not, you can do DC systems with caps/resisters without too much of a problem. Ohm's Law and close circuit analysis about the limit of what you'd learn before you hit problems with math.

Blocks - Fri Apr 13, 2007 1:32 am
Post subject: The Art of Electronics

The internet will only take you so far in terms of well-gathered technical knowledge--sooner or later, you'll have to hit the literal books.

The true path to EE is through a standard college physics textbook. I recommend Physics for Scientists and Engineers by Serway and Jewett. It provides a good grounding in electromagnetism as well as relativity. Knowing first physical principles will give you an edge over the nubs who dive straight into the engineering. Make sure to get the right volume.

After that, the tome in electronics is The Art of Electronics, by Horowitz and Hill. Be warned, however, this book is not for the faint of heart.

Mine GO BOOM - Fri Apr 13, 2007 2:18 am
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Another thing. If you live in NYC, go to one of the many, many libraries there. Huge sections of books you can check out to learn everything you ever wanted, and it won't cost you a dime.

Quan Chi2 - Fri Apr 13, 2007 2:47 pm
Post subject:

Mine GO BOOM wrote:

I'm basically trying to choose a major before I enter college. I mentioned to you before that I'm looking into PSU. Now I'm looking into NYIT. Anyway, I'm just trying to get a basic understanding of the subject before I decide that it's what I want to do. It seems like an interesting subject, but I don't have any experience in it, so that's also why I want to get a good introduction on the subject.

Blocks wrote:

Thanks. How come literal books are better than reading books on the computer/the internet?

Animate Dreams wrote:

You should post a link to the wikibook, as well.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering#Electrical_engineering
There are different sections.

Muskrat - Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:34 pm
Post subject:

I suggest that you don't choose a major before you've been in college for a year. Take a few different classes in possible fields, such as EE and anything else you're interested in, then decide.

Really, though, they are right. I would start out learning math and physics because thats pretty much what an EE does and if you don't enjoy them, don't even start.

Dr Brain - Fri Apr 13, 2007 8:09 pm
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Muskrat wrote:

I would start out learning math and physics because thats pretty much what an EE does and if you don't enjoy them, don't even start.

I wouldn't say that's all we do. I'd say you need a lot of it to become an EE and understand what's going on. Some of my classmates will never need to use it again once they've graduated.

Blocks - Sat Apr 14, 2007 2:05 am
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Quan Chi2 wrote:

How come literal books are better than reading books on the computer/the internet?

It's not that they're necessarily better, it's just that in my experience, real books tend to exist in higher quality than content on the internet, at least in technical subjects. That's not to say that electronic content is useless. I find internet content better suited for looking up specific things, and published books better for learning an entire subject.

I would also suggest not being dead-set on a major before entering college. At least try to get a taste of the different fields in science and engineering (or even humanities and liberal arts!) to make sure you like EE the best. Of course if I look back on my own path of decisions, that didn't really help me much, because every now I feel like I should be doing physics, biology, geology, or atmospheric science (instead of mechanical engineering).

Animate Dreams - Sat Apr 14, 2007 9:17 pm
Post subject:

That's probably true in most cases, Blocks. But internet resources are getting better and better every year. I'm no programming guru, but I don't think anyone would contradict me when I say the internet is probably 100 times better for programming tutorials/books/resources than any books you might get. Although, I still love books. I don't have enough internets that I can just put some in my car, or anything like that, so I like to carry books around.

SamHughes - Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:31 am
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I would contradict you. The web is great for documentation, but for the learning-how-to-think and learning-how-to-program aspect, books still have the upper hand. Not for long, though: more and more books are popping up freely available on the web.

I wouldn't say the online information is terribly bad, though: the mere existence of PHP causes more damage to the learning of programming than all the broken C++ tutorials combined.

Animate Dreams - Sun Apr 15, 2007 12:51 am
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SamHughes wrote:

I would contradict you. The web is great for documentation, but for the learning-how-to-think and learning-how-to-program aspect, books still have the upper hand.

On this matter, I would say any type of document except for source code to programs is probably the wrong place to look for those aspects. Except for a few things, everything I've encountered in class/in a book(and I read a lot of programming books) I've also encountered online. There are some things I haven't seen online at all, for example, we recently went over Big O notation in my C++ class(more like glanced at), and I haven't seen that anywhere. Although I'm sure I could learn about that online too, I don't know if it would be as easy. Or, it might be. Really, the mathematical side of programming as a whole seems to be explained much less thoroughly online. Maybe it's just because I never have occasion to browse those websites, but I figure it's because people ask those questions a lot less. And that may be because anyone who needs to know that probably already went through college and had it taught to them. I guess that's what college is for, ya?

SamHughes - Sun Apr 15, 2007 7:01 pm
Post subject:

There is at least one good big O tutorial out there, I can promise you that, because I wrote it

. I'm not going to tell you where it is.

Muskrat - Sun Apr 15, 2007 7:38 pm
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Nothing can be compared to the give and take of in-class discussion, with peers and/or the professor. If a concept is not explained well enough by homework, readings, or lecture, it can be reformulated until you understand it.

Besides, the key to success in any field is to be able to explain, learn from, and expand upon concepts in a group setting. Really the specifics of any field is an afterthought once you have the ability to truly learn, analyze, reason, and interact with other who do the same.

I'm taking a Software Engineering class and a Database class. Almost all of Software Engineering involves working in a group and communicating. Database, on the other hand, has very little of that. If you don't see what I'm getting at, take a look at some info on the differences for pay and opportunity to advance between DBAs(cubicle hell) and Software Engineers.

And yes, the same most definitely applies to EEs. I'm not saying you shouldn't read books. In fact, reading is probably one of the most important parts of your education. The idea I think most people miss, though, is that when reading books as an undergraduate the best thing you get out of them is practice reading the kind of material you will be reading on the job or as a grad student. The actual knowledge contained is secondary to the ability to easily assimilate knowledge from complex technical manuals. This is especially pertinent in technology fields.

Blocks - Sun Apr 15, 2007 11:02 pm
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Muskrat wrote:

Seconded, and I'd add that often in technical fields, you can know the material, and you can know how to use the material (problem-solving). It's possible to know one without the other, but you have to know both in order to do much of anything useful. In most of my classes, I go to lectures and read the books, and think that I have a decent idea of what's going on. Then I look at my problem sets and get a big "WTF" feeling. I work a little harder and do the problems, then I think I have the stuff down pat until the exams...the many layers of learning.

Quan Chi2 - Mon Apr 16, 2007 9:45 am
Post subject:

Muskrat wrote:

So if I get people to practice certain things like programming with me, I'll learn better? Also, when you are majoring in an engineering field, is there more group work and hands-on than reading?[/b]

Mine GO BOOM - Mon Apr 16, 2007 4:21 pm
Post subject:

Engineering is tons of group work. EE has lots of hands-on by working in a lab for a bunch of your classes. Be prepared to connects tons of little wires to tons of little chips, hooking up oscilloscopes, and just adjusting the hell out of it go get a fancy sinusoidal waveform to display. Every so often, you'll get to throw in LEDs or speakers, but rarely.

Can you get by without reading a lot? Yes, but you should know, reading should go hand-in-hand with other ways of learning, such as by doing, listening to lectures, doing homework, all those things that you thought were useless in high school. Well, when you get to college, the material is finally good, thus the need for a good study habit.

(Then again, I rarely bought the textbooks for most of my classes, even if you had to do homework out of them. EE was always one of the exceptions.)