A couple clicks through to older lcamtuf posts and I came across this in the "what is electricity" post:
> Once again, we don’t have a satisfying explanation why. We know that these quantum numbers correspond to standing-wave solutions of a three-dimensional wave function that we pulled out of thin air. We also know that the model works better than any alternatives. But we don’t know what any of it really means — or if it means anything.
It is so refreshing to see this explicated thus; physics textbooks are generally coy about "know this for now, and there will be deeper insights available later" but they typically never level with readers and say "we don't know".
lcamtuf is one of the smartest people I've ever seen. When you read his work you realize he's only sort of putting about 1% of his intelligence on the page.
Oddly enough, one of my upper level math textbooks (maybe real analysis, don't remember) said the same thing about the definition of a set, except that "later" meant graduate school.
I see some discussion of which books are good for people with various levels of electronics knowledge. I'd like to add one that I've never seen mentioned here: Agarwal and Lang's "Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronics".
This was the book used by MIT in 2007 for the first course in the EE and CS programs. It is that year's course that is on their Open Courseware platform [1], and the readings list there links to a full PDF of the book.
(Edit: click the book title on the readings page, not the "View e-book version" link. See my response to groos' comment below for details).
This is not a link to a pirated copy BTW. Agarwal is a pioneer in the open-education movement and the authors intentionally arranged for an open access PDF.
The lecture videos on Open Courseware are very good too.
Oh, I see the problem. You clicked the "View e-book version" link. That goes to the publisher's store. As far as I know they never had a PDF, just a special web version.
Click the book's title in the paragraph above that, where it says this:
> Agarwal, Anant, and Jeffrey H. Lang. Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Elsevier, July 2005. ISBN: 9781558607354.
That takes you to a PDF.
Sorry for not being more specific. I didn't even notice the "View e-book version" as I only went to the site to remind myself of the name of the book, saw the title was a link, and clicked it. Then I thought "Why is MIT linking to a pirate copy of a book from one of their own professors?", and did a little Googling to get some backstory.
If you're ordering from Europe, be sure to check if it's available in your local Amazon page first, I almost got slapped with like a 50% shipping/import charges because I went straight to the main link (the US amazon). The ones that have it are listed in the blog post.
I find it crazy that Amazon haven't implemented a feature that will take you to the same product in your local store easily. I had the same issue and had to go find it manually.
one cool feature amazon implements is that if you change the .com for .es (and nothing else) for a product link it will do exactly that. I know it is not automatic but it works.
This book looks like it’s targeted squarely at people like me!
I’ve been a software engineer for the last couple of decades and I’ve tinkered with microcontrollers as a hobby but always been limited by my lack of electronics knowledge - very much trial and error to get a project far enough to be able to focus on the firmware (which is more my domain). I want to bridge the knowledge gap there.
My only formal electronics education was first year introduction to analog and digital circuits module at university two decades ago, led by a lecturer who assumed students had a huge corpus of pre-existing knowledge (and who I now suspect would have preferred to be supervising his PhD students and conducting research but had to make up the teaching hours - which I do understand).
I will definitely pick up a copy. However, Amazon UK (to avoid the NoStarch UPS shipping cost of $24) won’t get it to me until November. I’m excited to receive it.
Michał Zalewski (the author of this book) is goated. His book Silence on the Wire was very inspiring to me and the techniques he described often come to my mind years after reading the book
Why do you think AI "talks" like that? It is pervasive in a lot oof the training material.
Most people writing scientific literature are not English majors nor even great communicators, their primary competencies are elsewhere. Expecting everyone to write literature is just odd & reductive.
Yes, it helps to be a good writer, but the primary objective for science papers is to convey information; that it is well written or enjoyable is a nice bonus but not essential.
I'd counter that AI usually writes way better than typical person, definitely way better than any commenters here (myself included).
What's jarring about AI content is seeing the mastery of English applied in mundane contexts, where people are used to see more basic, pedestrian language.
(That, and overuse of patterns, which is more of an artifact of how people use LLMs - specifically that 90%+ of the AI output you see is the first response to the prompt in a fresh session. For AI, each time is the first time it's using this pattern, for user it's the 10th time they saw it within the span of an hour.)
I just read a Quanta article from 2015 and literally had to check the date after the third "X not Y" I encountered. But the models have learned that from somewhere, too.
This is a much better introduction to circuits than most. You actually get a bit of depth rather than a cookbook of "do this to get that" sort of prose.
I'm not sure who exactly this book is for, but it's certainly not for absolute beginners. There is a huge delta between the target audience and the level of understanding and experience someone not knowing a first thing about electronics would typically have.
I can clearly remember sitting there reading about component parasitics, without even having a clear idea how an ideal component behaves, and so on. I was just lacking buckets of context, and it was a painful read with lots of assumptions about the reader's background.
On the other hand, I still think it is a great book, like pretty much everything else from NoStarch. I just disagree on it being suitable as a first book in electronics.
That said, I'm looking forward to the day when I will be on an adequate enough level to read it again -- this time, in its entirety.
That’s also what I really like about “Practical Electronics for Inventors”, the authors explains the underlying physics for each component. Though the theory chapter can be heavy if you want to follow everything. “Secrets Life of Circuits” seems to be a bit more approachable
I'm hoping you're right. I enthusiastically bought PEFI but found it to be way over my head. I'm eager to get SLOC because I'm hoping it can be sort of a bridge between my "MAKE: Electronics" book and PEFI.
PEFI/PE4I as a technical reference when you need details about a specific topic, SLOC as an overall introduction to give a good intuition, and M:E for more practical project tutorials, if that’s what we (hobbyists without any formal training) end up with that would be awesome :)
AlphaPhoenix YouTube channel is also a great source of information to clarify theoretical topics. I find it very helpful to just see how he think about electricity in his various projects: https://youtu.be/X_crwFuPht4. And his enthusiasm is contagious!
One personal note: as someone coming from software I find learning electronics pretty hard as it requires a completely different mental model and way to approach systems. Took me years of various failed attempts to finally internalize I have to stop relying on metaphors and shortcuts, and instead understand the actual physics at play to develop an intuition that makes sense. That looks daunting and I thought I would hate that part but in fact after pushing through the first weeks it becomes really satisfying! Accept things take time and that you will be uncomfortable for a while, and move at your own pace. And here LLMs are actually really helpful to clarify topics you’re not sure you understand fully, once you start to learn the terminology (I use instructions that makes it clear they shouldn’t solve things for me and instead evaluate my understanding)
To me, transistors are the best example of how hard EE can be. I heard "transistor is a switch" or "transistor is an amplifier". So I bought some MOSFETs and tried to use them. No go. Well, I had to learn (through random web pages and some books) that microcontrollers struggle to switch mosfets. Fine. I'll get a gate driver. Then I have to very carefully pick a bunch of resistor values that make my system behave. Eventually, I learn that transistors aren't switches at all, but can be coerced into sort of behaving like switches, but in reality, there is always leakage and a hundred other variables you have to understasnd and control for. You can see one of my threads here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/comments/1omqn4d/con...
Also as a person who came to Embedded/Electronics from the Software side, i found the following incredibly useful to bridge the software-hardware gap using MCUs;
This has more of a hardware interfacing slant than most books on embedded systems which is what a software person needs. Every topic is first introduced in a general way with lots of illustrations and then its application in MSP430 is shown. Hence we can easily transfer our understanding to any other MCU family. A really good textbook for serious students of embedded electronics.
> as someone coming from software I find learning electronics pretty hard as it requires a completely different mental model and way to approach systems
I went from electronics to software and one thing that has puzzled me is how much people dislike reading docs as in reference manuals. People can get by with sloppy code full of hidden bugs and when those bugs arise they’re like deers frozen by headlights.
Imagine building a circuit without any ideas how it operates. I’ve encountered web devs that don’t understand how http works.
I like Elicia White’s Making Embedded Systems because it covers a lot of practical stuff like how to read a datasheet. It’s a good book for existing programmers.
A lot of electronic books struggle to find balance between super easy projects, very specific cookbook recipes or a laundry list of components.
Super looking forward to it. Got it on preorder in Europe! Will still be a bit of a waiting time.
Always enjoy reading the blog posts, and this seems like a great way to support work that gives me joy.
Who knows, might start picking up actual electronics as side projects. Hardware work seems like such a great way to get code into the physical world.
My objective has often been to build & test as many experimental circuits as I could in the shortest amount of time.
One of the real good shortcuts is to just start soldering parts together according to a plan in your head, without taking the time to make a schematic drawing beforehand or do any advanced calculations.
There might be more emphasis on the properties and ratings of each component this way, this is not something to skip over, you should be very familiar with each component you use. Well in advance, and loads of hours of component study needs to be behind you, otherwise you may not do too good at just whipping something up on the bench that's electrically sound to begin with.
As pointed out, with math it can be the same way.
If you just want to quickly start picking up parts and soldering them together right away without doing any advanced calculations, the best shortcut is to have already become quite familiar with the equations including calculus when necessary, so you can bring to bear endless hours of mathematical study and use it to intuitively guide your soldering iron for every hour at the bench.
Edit: upvoted because your message should not be less than neutral, not greyed out at all. Obviously, I'm on the fence, sometimes I use math, other times not at all ;)
They have. When you need more math -- and you will if you stick with this business for very long -- it'll usually be obvious, and you can pick up those skills then. It's never been easier.
It's just a stylistic thing, same with the smoke, which represents heat more so than fumes.
Normally you hold the iron horizontal under the nose and of course don't breathe during the heat test.
And you don't actually kiss the soldering iron until it's cooled all the way down, and usually not unless the experimental circuit you came up with works the first time you plug it in :) So you can relax as intended and unplug the damn iron, without having to keep on hammering til all hours.
One thing she's not telling is the way you should be effective enough soldering using (very inexpensive) uncontrolled soldering irons, that you can eventually solder two pieces of solder together. Before you graduate to a "pro-grade" soldering station.
This looks like it’ll be a good book for me to learn more about electrical theory and circuit design, I know a bit about AC and DC electricity from working in electrical construction which should help me dive right in, thanks for sharing this book release!
Sir, you have a knack for inspiring commentary: the exact opposite of damning with faint praise! Also 0% slop it made me pre-order the book immediately.
The cover art is a gross error of judgement, and it stops me from buying this book for the next generation of hackers in the wider family.
Adults will understand that the "shush" gesture with the soldering iron is supposed to be a play on the "secret" in the title, but a large part of the target audience is 12-15 years old. There will inevitably be some who'll imitate the picture, with painful results.
> Once again, we don’t have a satisfying explanation why. We know that these quantum numbers correspond to standing-wave solutions of a three-dimensional wave function that we pulled out of thin air. We also know that the model works better than any alternatives. But we don’t know what any of it really means — or if it means anything.
It is so refreshing to see this explicated thus; physics textbooks are generally coy about "know this for now, and there will be deeper insights available later" but they typically never level with readers and say "we don't know".
This was the book used by MIT in 2007 for the first course in the EE and CS programs. It is that year's course that is on their Open Courseware platform [1], and the readings list there links to a full PDF of the book.
(Edit: click the book title on the readings page, not the "View e-book version" link. See my response to groos' comment below for details).
This is not a link to a pirated copy BTW. Agarwal is a pioneer in the open-education movement and the authors intentionally arranged for an open access PDF.
The lecture videos on Open Courseware are very good too.
[1] https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/6-002-circuits-and-electronics-s...
Click the book's title in the paragraph above that, where it says this:
> Agarwal, Anant, and Jeffrey H. Lang. Foundations of Analog and Digital Electronic Circuits. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Elsevier, July 2005. ISBN: 9781558607354.
That takes you to a PDF.
Sorry for not being more specific. I didn't even notice the "View e-book version" as I only went to the site to remind myself of the name of the book, saw the title was a link, and clicked it. Then I thought "Why is MIT linking to a pirate copy of a book from one of their own professors?", and did a little Googling to get some backstory.
Here is the PDF they link to: https://neurophysics.ucsd.edu/courses/physics_120/Agarwal%20...
1. https://youtu.be/pDELW2pIvWw?si=BNsURdXrGLlaAfF3 (Digital Electronic)
2. https://youtu.be/RG3eljmqyq4?si=Pnbvf6P6HbFcIa1v (Alternating Current, Motors, & control)
3. https://youtu.be/nYuVSG89vg0?si=Oe3ZdJojS7T_iGxK (Electric Basic Made is Easy), and
the episode of "Nand to Tetris"
I’ve been a software engineer for the last couple of decades and I’ve tinkered with microcontrollers as a hobby but always been limited by my lack of electronics knowledge - very much trial and error to get a project far enough to be able to focus on the firmware (which is more my domain). I want to bridge the knowledge gap there.
My only formal electronics education was first year introduction to analog and digital circuits module at university two decades ago, led by a lecturer who assumed students had a huge corpus of pre-existing knowledge (and who I now suspect would have preferred to be supervising his PhD students and conducting research but had to make up the teaching hours - which I do understand).
I will definitely pick up a copy. However, Amazon UK (to avoid the NoStarch UPS shipping cost of $24) won’t get it to me until November. I’m excited to receive it.
Most people writing scientific literature are not English majors nor even great communicators, their primary competencies are elsewhere. Expecting everyone to write literature is just odd & reductive.
Yes, it helps to be a good writer, but the primary objective for science papers is to convey information; that it is well written or enjoyable is a nice bonus but not essential.
What's jarring about AI content is seeing the mastery of English applied in mundane contexts, where people are used to see more basic, pedestrian language.
(That, and overuse of patterns, which is more of an artifact of how people use LLMs - specifically that 90%+ of the AI output you see is the first response to the prompt in a fresh session. For AI, each time is the first time it's using this pattern, for user it's the 10th time they saw it within the span of an hour.)
I'm not sure who exactly this book is for, but it's certainly not for absolute beginners. There is a huge delta between the target audience and the level of understanding and experience someone not knowing a first thing about electronics would typically have.
I can clearly remember sitting there reading about component parasitics, without even having a clear idea how an ideal component behaves, and so on. I was just lacking buckets of context, and it was a painful read with lots of assumptions about the reader's background.
On the other hand, I still think it is a great book, like pretty much everything else from NoStarch. I just disagree on it being suitable as a first book in electronics.
That said, I'm looking forward to the day when I will be on an adequate enough level to read it again -- this time, in its entirety.
AlphaPhoenix YouTube channel is also a great source of information to clarify theoretical topics. I find it very helpful to just see how he think about electricity in his various projects: https://youtu.be/X_crwFuPht4. And his enthusiasm is contagious!
One personal note: as someone coming from software I find learning electronics pretty hard as it requires a completely different mental model and way to approach systems. Took me years of various failed attempts to finally internalize I have to stop relying on metaphors and shortcuts, and instead understand the actual physics at play to develop an intuition that makes sense. That looks daunting and I thought I would hate that part but in fact after pushing through the first weeks it becomes really satisfying! Accept things take time and that you will be uncomfortable for a while, and move at your own pace. And here LLMs are actually really helpful to clarify topics you’re not sure you understand fully, once you start to learn the terminology (I use instructions that makes it clear they shouldn’t solve things for me and instead evaluate my understanding)
For transistors vs MOSFET I really liked https://youtu.be/DKYguNg1vmk as an overview
1) Introduction to Embedded Systems: Using Microcontrollers and the MSP430 by Manuel Jiménez, Rogelio Palomera, Isidoro Couvertier - https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4614-3143-5
This has more of a hardware interfacing slant than most books on embedded systems which is what a software person needs. Every topic is first introduced in a general way with lots of illustrations and then its application in MSP430 is shown. Hence we can easily transfer our understanding to any other MCU family. A really good textbook for serious students of embedded electronics.
I went from electronics to software and one thing that has puzzled me is how much people dislike reading docs as in reference manuals. People can get by with sloppy code full of hidden bugs and when those bugs arise they’re like deers frozen by headlights.
Imagine building a circuit without any ideas how it operates. I’ve encountered web devs that don’t understand how http works.
A lot of electronic books struggle to find balance between super easy projects, very specific cookbook recipes or a laundry list of components.
Always enjoy reading the blog posts, and this seems like a great way to support work that gives me joy. Who knows, might start picking up actual electronics as side projects. Hardware work seems like such a great way to get code into the physical world.
Oh yes, these kinds of shortcuts have always worked great.
One of the real good shortcuts is to just start soldering parts together according to a plan in your head, without taking the time to make a schematic drawing beforehand or do any advanced calculations.
There might be more emphasis on the properties and ratings of each component this way, this is not something to skip over, you should be very familiar with each component you use. Well in advance, and loads of hours of component study needs to be behind you, otherwise you may not do too good at just whipping something up on the bench that's electrically sound to begin with.
As pointed out, with math it can be the same way.
If you just want to quickly start picking up parts and soldering them together right away without doing any advanced calculations, the best shortcut is to have already become quite familiar with the equations including calculus when necessary, so you can bring to bear endless hours of mathematical study and use it to intuitively guide your soldering iron for every hour at the bench.
Edit: upvoted because your message should not be less than neutral, not greyed out at all. Obviously, I'm on the fence, sometimes I use math, other times not at all ;)
That was a silly statement by the author; just say that this is "less theoretical" and not a textbook.
Looked at the contents/sample chapter and it seems just like many of the books published by make magazine.
Also see Sensors and Signal Conditioning by Ramon Pallas-Areny and John Webster for a theoretical combination treatment.
It's just a stylistic thing, same with the smoke, which represents heat more so than fumes.
Normally you hold the iron horizontal under the nose and of course don't breathe during the heat test.
And you don't actually kiss the soldering iron until it's cooled all the way down, and usually not unless the experimental circuit you came up with works the first time you plug it in :) So you can relax as intended and unplug the damn iron, without having to keep on hammering til all hours.
One thing she's not telling is the way you should be effective enough soldering using (very inexpensive) uncontrolled soldering irons, that you can eventually solder two pieces of solder together. Before you graduate to a "pro-grade" soldering station.
The wide margins remind me of university coursebooks.
What I want is a paperback where the margins are chosen such that you can read the text when you fold back the facing part of the book.
(Or is it praising with generous damnation?)
How about a triple-play, damning with damn damnation?
Adults will understand that the "shush" gesture with the soldering iron is supposed to be a play on the "secret" in the title, but a large part of the target audience is 12-15 years old. There will inevitably be some who'll imitate the picture, with painful results.