Modern Physical Electronics

We present here a new type of book intended for a wide audience. Before describing the approach used in the book and the readers we had in mind, it might be worthwhile to say a few words about the aims the book is not planned to fulfil. It is not an encyclopaedia enumerating the main applications of the subject, and crammed full of practical data; nor is this a very simple survey designed for complete novices. Perhaps the best way of describing the people for whom the book is intended is to give a few examples. Let us take an Arts graduate who has been offered a job by an electrical company (say computers). It becomes expedient for this graduate to learn about circuits and computers and he would probably also like to look at some other branches of Electricity. All he needs to do is to brush up his a-level mathematics and read as much of the four volumes as he fmds interesting.
Our next example is a University Professor. Unless he is near to retiring age he would likely be a specialist in no more than a few branches of Electricity. Let us now assume that an old schoolmate of his comes to visit him. This friend specialises in Plasmas, the Professor is an expert in Circuits. The Professor is very reluctant to admit that he knows next to nothing about Plasmas. He is anxious to find a simple description that he can digest in half an hour. This is the book for it. And of course the same applies to other university staff lower down the hierarchy.
The next category I would like to mention is undergraduates. As is well known, the large majority of them are in a perpetual state of confusion. They are taught so much in such a short time that only the odd genius is capable of absorbing the lot. Frequently Science undergraduates become saturated with mathematical derivations and have only rather vague ideas about the underlying physics. For them a non-mathematical treatment stressing the basic ideas and their interrelations - such as are contained within this series - will prove extremely valuable.