A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Product DescriptionThis is the thoroughly revised and updated Second Edition of the hugely successful The Art of Electronics. Widely accepted as the single, authoritative text and reference on electronic circuit design, both analog and digital, this book has sold over 120,000 copies, and has been translated into eight languages. This book revolutionized the teaching of electronics by emphasizing the methods actually used by circuit designers–a combination of some basic laws, rules of . . . More >>
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
No. 1 — February 1st, 2010 at 10:58 am
To start with: I have not read “The art of electronics” but, since I would like to buy a book providing answers to many practical questions, I was wondering whether this would be of help. And so I read the customers comments. And after having read these I was left puzzled and confused. I still do not know what the target group is or whether I will find the sort of information I need. Most comments were very positive, but two were very negative. There does not seem to be an in-between. Either you love it or you hate it. Why is that so? I was also surprised by the fact that all comments were of a recent date, whereas the book is ten years old. My question to Amazon: would it not be possible to attach a few pages of the book as an example. It would be helpful to build my own impression. P. S. I gave the book a three star “neutral” rating because I had to fill in that field.
Rating: 3 / 5
No. 2 — February 1st, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Item price and delivery were excellent.
Rating: 5 / 5
No. 3 — February 1st, 2010 at 4:48 pm
The Art of teach with fun & contundent style. For artists of electronics, or “open-mind”, the better election.
Rating: 5 / 5
No. 4 — February 1st, 2010 at 7:14 pm
This book is way overated. Its way-out, wacky treament of electronics could definitely not be that of any well thought-of engineer. It’s frankly just a bunch of goofy unsystematic mumbo-jumbo by some over-educated self-proclaimed “physicists. ” So imagine my surprise when I read a translation of this in Russian. I think the whole world must have been duped. Do yourself a favor. Go read the Smith book (see my other reviews) and avoid this one like the plague.
Update: This text is the academic literary equivalent of Sanjaya Malakar from Idol. One suspects that its ecstatic fans must be born-dupes who have finally found someone who will deceive and even lie to them in just the right way.
Rating: 1 / 5
No. 5 — February 1st, 2010 at 8:49 pm
I had real high hopes for this book. I waited salivating for a week for it to show up in the mail. Eagerly, I tore open the package & immediately began perusing through it, intent on getting a taste of what was within. As expected from my observation of the page count, there was a plethora of information at my fingertips, everything an individual could possibly surmise he/she might need to know on transistors, diodes, dividers, saturation, emitters, etc. But within minutes of glancing through, my heart sunk. There was just one thing that was holding me back from diving head first into the book beginning on page 1, that one thing was the fact that there were no color photographs, everything was a stark, brutal, dry, clipped black-&-white. There was no explaining of just what in the world electricity was & why it acted as it did. I’ve taken a physics course, & conceptually, I excel at it. I was anticipating an overview on the very thing that was the key point of this waste of paper. There was none. It SAID in the beginning that it would start off at a point that even an neophyte could follow. I have my own hypothesis on why the lowest rating available that can be given to a book is one & not a big fat 0: It’s because that the majority of these authors, artists, editors, etc. , have at least TRIED to get a point across. It ISN’T easy writing a book. Everybody deserves at least a single lonely star for the effort that is exhibited through the very book’s existence. This just wasn’t the book for me. Not for the highly restless, distractable, impatient person that I am. To get my attention, there must be something to spark interest. I have to say, the cover was real nice. It IS a HANDBOOK for the PRACTICING electrian, not for the just-curious-so-I’ll-just-skim-through-it-to-achieve-a-better-understanding-of-the-topic person. Another one of this book’s highlights is it’s valiant attempt to teach the art of electronics w/o scaring people off w/ the heavy math. It also tries an intuitive approach, which is very nice, however it only succeeds 25% of the time. To get the most out of this book: 1) Do not have attention defecit disorder. 2) Have a clear understanding of algebra (how to work w/ imaginary numbers inparticular), trigonometry (conics, especially), & calculus. 3) Be patient. 4) Be anal retentive.
Rating: 1 / 5
No. 6 — February 8th, 2010 at 9:20 am
This book is not for electrical/electronics engineering students. It’s also not for casual hobbyists who just want to build projects. It’s more for students who need to learn basic electronics circuit design for their major field of study. It could also be used by advanced and/or serious hobbyists who want to learn basic design. The key word is design. You’ll never learn it without some basic math. In this regard, I actually find this book has _too_many_ pictures, anecdotal & shopping info for my taste. Those I can find in catalogs. I would rather have more design info. It’s relatively weak on power control and supplies and RF (so some suggest also using the ARRL handbook, or maybe a DeMaw or Hayward book) and mixed-signal (DSPs, analog-to-digital converters ). It’s treatment of digital design is a bit dated, emphasizing discrete logic and microprocessors instead of reconfigurable logic and microcontrollers). It’s main strengths are basic analog circuit design (transistor and op-amp circuits), and I found it very useful for this.