The Art of Electronics
by Paul Horowitz, Winfield Hill
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Book Reviews of The Art of Electronics
Book Review: The Electronics Bible has playful practicality
Summary: 5 Stars
This has been on my reference shelf for over fifteen years, because it's immensely practical, but it's also a lot of fun.One of my favorite examples of the "playful practicality": In the discussion on power in resistors where the authors suggest you calculate the power lost in and temperature of a one foot, pure copper cable supplying New York City with 10 megawatts of power (or about 1 kilowatt a person). As you work through the equations, you realize that in 20 feet, the cable will have lost all ten megawatts (due to the resistance of the copper) and will reach a temperature of over 3500 kelvin (gaseous copper, anyone?).
The practical angle is: the result is obviously preposterous. You'd really use multiple cables and supplies.
What's also impressive about the book is they cover so much, ranging from basic microelectronics to building a signal convertor with the Motorola 68008 (with code supplied!).
Book Review: confused
Summary: 3 Stars
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.Book Review: Highly Recommended!
Summary: 5 Stars
Being a mechanical engineer by training and working in an automation environment, I found myself asking questions that electrical engineers take for granted. I called one of my professors and asked her for advice on a reference book that will bring me up to speed. She recommended this book and having used it at least 2-3 times a week since I recieved it, I consider it a great investment! While I agree with some of the previous reviewers remarks on the quality of the index, the judicious use of tabs, post-its and writing in the margins allows me to cope with this deficiency. The major impact this book has on my professional life is it allows me to ask an "intelligent" question to an electrical engineer which is focused to the task at hand. This is done without going thru peripheral theory and application explanations of which this book does an excellent job.Book Review: Nicked for a flaw
Summary: 3 Stars
Art of Electronics is an extremely complete and detailed tome on the subject. It seems to have everything in terms of theory and practice you might wish to know about the subject, including the various pathologies of components.However, there is a glaring error which mars the book. This is not a book for a neophyte. The opening chapters promise to define things 'later' like the concept of ground (which it never does), and rigorously applying the rules they give fails to explain the circuits. It is not a rigorous book in the sense that not everything follows from the information they give, and you end up having to take much on faith.
However, its other chapters are very good; it goes to higher abstraction layers than just the electronics, when for example they explain processors and assembly language. It is a heavy book, and they did not waste any space.
Book Review: Excellent Circuit Design Reference
Summary: 4 Stars
I originally bought this book to learn electronics from it, but I discovered that it really isn't very good for self-study. Its explanations of circuit design are very terse, every explanation communicates large amounts of information in as few words as possible. Because of this, you almost have to meditate on this book to solve problems. While this is a great feature for a novice designer who understands a fair chunk of the basics, or for an academic type that can comprehend terse explanations quickly, it just isn't a good learning text.
That said, I've used this book to explore and learn about good circuit design concepts, and applying the theory. I find it akin to reading Martin Chemnitz on theology; tons of explanations and a goldmine of info, but it assumes you are at a high enough experience level to appreciate them.