Math book recommendations: electronics-design-engineer

A lot depends on how easy you find maths. "Engineering Mathematics", KA Stroud, is deservedly very popular in Britain:

It has a progammatic approach, which takes you through in easy steps. The more mathematically inclined might find this irritating, but for most non- specialists, it seems a very good scheme. I learned from this book 30 years ago; my daughter is using the latest edition today.

Paul Burke

Must read is a strong word, but I bought a copy of 'Modern Engineering mathematics' by Glyn James, publ. Addison Wesley. It has a lot of EE related examples.

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I believe I'd learn to read and write English (or whatever your native language is) correctly first.

6e Early Transcendentals - Edwards and Penney"; this book covers basic Calculus and a bit of vectors.

I haven't started out on the 'tronic text books in a through manner as yet since i hope to get the math grounding right; I don't want to have to keep running back to brush up on my math once i start out on 'tronics.

What would be YOUR "Must read!" MATH books for a budding EEE engineer.

What the hell is an "EEE Engineer"? 4-E? I recall the farm kids were members of something like that. Nah, that was 4-H.

You're self-taught? For EE you want Laplace and linear algebra and matrices and basic calculus and differential equations and maybe difference equations. Complex analysis is probably of less practical use. Also statistics and numerical analysis. Depends a bit on what you're planning to do. Some of the Schaum's outlines are good and they are quite inexpensive compared to university-level texts.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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For a course in self-study, I'd second this recommendation. Stroud's book is one of the few that has enough already step-by-step solved problems and solutions in the back for the others that it's a decent substitute if you don't have a professor or TA around to provide such items. It makes the book quite thick, but it's paperback so it's still pretty inexpensive.

For a more traditional-style math textbook, I like Peter O'Neil's "Advanced Engineering Mathematics."

For whatever odd reason, I've found that a lot of text books from the UK have this "programmatic" approach which is often a lot more pragmatic for people who just want to get some job done rather than readying themselves for a career as a math professor. :-)

---Joel Kolstad

Sorry 'bout the typo's. Is there a way to re-edit the post?

The ; are legitimate. Hmm.. perhaps.. "I am in the process of learning Calculus; i am using "Calculus 6e Early Transcendentals - Edwards and Penney". This book covers basic Calculus and a bit of vectors." and "thorough"

I am rather new to it, having just finished Lynn Truss's great book, so perhaps i am practising it a little too hard .

EEE is a acronym for Electrical and Electronic Engineer..Oops, point noted .

Well, no! I attend college. Just started it recently. The prof's are great so i hope this doesn't reflect poorly on them. I wanted a few book suggestions from people in the field, which is why i posted.

Phew! Anyway, this was my first post to newsgroups so sorry for the snafu's!

I was hoping for some good book suggestions for Laplace Transforms, Fourier series, Complex Analysis, Complex Integration and Bessel functions.

I just want to be able to read electronic-design text books and not have to keep running to check up on the mathematics involved. I don't know anything about design but i did read some posts on this newsgroup by John Popelish, Terry Given and lots of others about the math involved in filter design

- poles and zeroes and the s-plane and stuff..Since i don't have a clue what a pole or a zero is, i was hoping for some book that would explain things to me very very simply.

At the level it sounds like you're at, if you're specifically interested in filter design, I'd suggest "Analog and Digital Filter Design" by Steve Winder. It contains enough of a math review that you'd likely understand what Terry & friends are discussing. Unfortunately, it's a somewhat expensive book for what it is, since if it's not available in your library I can't really recommend purchasing a new copy.

The book you have on hand is more than adequate for purposes of establishing a solid mathematical foundation. Engineering and science rely VERY heavily upon a good working knowledge of the transcendentals and their analytic properties, so the book is exactly right for engineering and science students. You can't think about complex analysis ( poles, zeroes ), the various transforms (LaPlace and Fourier), and the special functions (Bessel), without developing a good understanding of the material you're covering now. One last point is that your days of "reading" are over. The mathematical and technical literature is such that the idea of reading is an illusion, this material must be worked through with pencil and paper in hand, verifying conclusions that might be stated without exposition, solving excercises, answering questions, and working through examples. There are things called "trade magazines" that do not require this level of effort, but the majority of content is so much blither blather.

HALF-vast ;-)

...Jim Thompson

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|  James E.Thompson, P.E.                           |    mens     |
|  Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
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^ *vast*

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

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"it\'s the network..."                          "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com

I would recommend a book which is specifically about DSP. It covers the most promising aspect of EE and you cannot start early enough. The second chapter is suitable for beginners, but you will always find it a reference even after intense study. It is expensive, so borrow it first from the Lib. Discrete-Time Signal Processing Oppenheim, Schafer Prentice-Hall 1999/1989

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ciao Ban
Apricale, Italy

What makes you think DSP is "the most promising aspect of EE?"

This is a good book; my college DSP classes were from Luca Lucchese, who was one of Oppenheim's students and used his book.

Pretty obvious, especially if a person is interested in maths. The analog guys are old farths like us in this NG and have become rare. And DSP is all about developing algorithms, pure math and implementing it into some MPUs, FPGAs, DSPs or whatever. Today it is as important to know Matlab as Spice, and even that is pure digital processing. I want to see the product that is still working analog. What's left is just the front-end interface to the A/D and even the sensors have digital outputs now. Power supplies, motor controls, even audio amps. what to say about automation, media, TV radio, cellphones ... Digital Signal Processing is already everywhere and has taken over the whole electronics industry, just like the transistor did with tubes some 40yrs. ago.

Then you know how challenging it is. I refer to digital in its entity not only the specific tasks done by DSP-chips but all kind of logic.

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ciao Ban
Apricale, Italy

Hi Ban,

Sure, but I'd say that a key component of DSP is the analog front end -- high speed op-amps and ADCs -- and the back-end -- more op-amps and DACs. As such, good analog guys aren't going to be unemployed any time soon.

There are still an awful lots of cheap AM and FM radios and TVs built that are pure analog. Obsolete technology, sure, but it's not going to completely die for awhile yet. (Yes, I am aware that plenty of better AM/FM radios and TVs perform significant processing digitally too.)

There's a lot of meat in there -- it certainly takes a significant time investment to absorb it all -- but if you started at page 1 and went slowly but steadily the progression seemed pretty natural and straightforward. I did have a very good instructor though, so that impression might be a little off. (It was one of those classes were you learned 90+% of what you needed to know you learned in class, and the book served mainly as a reference and a source of homework problems. Much better than the classes with horrible lecturers where it's the book that teaches 90+%!)

The book by Steve Smith is respectable and a free download:

But why the hell you would recommend this to a freshman undergraduate who happens to be enrolled in EE, I will never know.