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Average Customer Rating:

Really close to a "must have" for the engineering library

Customer Rating:

Say what you will, but even the EMC/EMI "guru type" person gets confused once in awhile on the complexities of electromagnetics. So that leaves us "little people" in need of a handy, precise and basic-to-advanced "explainer" to get us back on track. I'm fairly seasoned on EMC but I really like this book and carry it with me quite often on trips for handy reference. It certainly provides for the "big picture" while still adding significant depth. Especially for the beginner to intermediate this book is highly recommended. I have this suspicion the advanced persons don't have it far away either! Congratulations to the author. Perhaps he will follow up with an advanced version on select topics.

An easy to read book , so?

Customer Rating:

The author has succeeded in writing an easy to read book. I read through it in two days. But is it useful and worthy keeping? The author covers a lot of ground, even included a cursory introduction to special relativity and quantum electrodynamics which have no relevance to the rest of the book. It gives a relatively painless introduction to various concepts in electromagnetism. But the superficiality makes it a book for the popular audience rather than electrical engineers. The author does have the good sense to include a set of good references. So read the book once, and study the reference books. The book is not worthy keeping. I've sold mine.

Nice integration of diverse topics

Customer Rating:

I'd characterize this book as qualitative rather than quantitative. It provides good verbal descriptions for a wide variety of concepts related to electromagnetics. For me, it tied together a lot of lose ends. This book works pretty well for someone who has a moderate grasp of the electromagnetic fundamentals and wants to go to the next level of understanding without becoming mired in equations -- maybe a sort of heavy duty tutorial for students, recent graduates, and just-plain-curious technically oriented people. This is one of those must-read books, but I would not recommend it to someone without knowldge of college-level physics and differential calculus.

not suited for an engineer

Customer Rating:

I am dubious that this will be useful to a practising engineer, even though the book is part of the EDN series, ostensibly for design engineers. The level of treatment of electromagnetism is very elementary. Maxwell's equations are mentioned in the text, but are not actually given as formulae. Special relativity is covered, and some equations from it appear. Probably because these do not need the vector notation and the vector calculus that Maxwell's equations are often given in. Quantum mechanics gets a brief mention. And even quantum electrodynamics! All very qualitative. The descriptions are correct, as far as they go. But for a book on electromagnetics, at its level of sophistication, there really was no need to even mention QED. The multiple pages devoted to a high level walkthrough of QED are a dead end, as far as actually tying into the rest of the text. Non sequitar. For example, one section talks about designing a transmission line. Fine. That is something an electrical engineer would do. But the skills needed for this do not require any quantum mechanics. The book corresponds to a freshman level engineering text. A practising engineer should be well past this entry level offering. In fact, this book seems better suited for a technician, like an electrician.

Very good review and convincing explanation

Customer Rating:

If you are not an expert in Electromagnetics and would like to get a broad perspective of the field without going into complex mathematics, this book is the right choice for you. All the explanation is clear and convincing. You will not feel like you are reading a book, but in stead listening to an expert in RF engineer speaking to you. In addition, you will find the references given in separate sub-topics very handy. They leads you directly to the right books when further knowledge in a specific area is required. (Why 4 stars? Some topics can be given and discussed in more detail.)