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Fundamentals of Electric Circuits
Fundamentals of Electric Circuits, 2e is intended for use in the introductory circuit analysis or circuit theory course taught in electrical engineering or electrical engineering technology departments. The main objective of this book is to present circuit analysis in a clear, easy-to-understand manner, with many practical applications to interest the student. Each chapter opens with either historical sketches or career information on a subdiscipline of electrical engineering. This is followed by an introduction that includes chapter objectives. Each chapter closes with a summary of the key points and formulas. The authors present principles in an appealing and lucid step-by-step manner, carefully explaining each step. Important formulas are highlighted to help students sort out what is essential and what is not. Many pedagogical aids reinforce the concepts learned in the text so that students get comfortable with the various methods of analysis presented in the text.
960 pages, Hardcover
First published August 28, 1999
107 people are currently reading
1014 people want to read
About the author
Charles K. Alexander
21 books9 followersCharles Alexander, PhD., P.E., is professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cleveland State University.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
June 8, 2024
Not comprehensive like that of Boylestad. Still had been advantageous in ac analysis.
13 Dec, 2022
Beg your pardon! It's even helpful while you begin to learn control system and signals and systems. The Frequency Response part—love it.
13 Dec, 2022
Beg your pardon! It's even helpful while you begin to learn control system and signals and systems. The Frequency Response part—love it.
December 10, 2013
I used this book for Electric Circuit 1 and I am going to use it again in Electric Circuit 2. My professor is Charles K. Alexander, one of the authors of this book.
He said that they have written the book for different type of courses and it has been written in a way that instructors can use it in different ways to teach the fundamentals of Electric Circuits's topics.
In short, the first half of the book is so clear and written in a good way with a lot of examples and solved problems in addition to many and MANY practice problems at the end of each chapter.
The second half of the book as well have been written clearly, but the subjects in this half will be a little bit more difficult, specially if the student studies it at his/her own, and he/she has no previous knowledge in the topics.
I think I will keep it in my library, at least for a while
I will continue using it and if I found there is a need for change my review I will do that.
He said that they have written the book for different type of courses and it has been written in a way that instructors can use it in different ways to teach the fundamentals of Electric Circuits's topics.
In short, the first half of the book is so clear and written in a good way with a lot of examples and solved problems in addition to many and MANY practice problems at the end of each chapter.
The second half of the book as well have been written clearly, but the subjects in this half will be a little bit more difficult, specially if the student studies it at his/her own, and he/she has no previous knowledge in the topics.
I think I will keep it in my library, at least for a while
I will continue using it and if I found there is a need for change my review I will do that.
February 20, 2012
The professor I had chose this book because he saw it had good reviews on Amazon. I was actually a little skeptical in the beginning, but when I bought the book and read it, it was really easy to follow through and understand. I would recommend this to anyone who is trying to teach themselves the basics of electrical circuits. I didn't finish the book, but I do intend to finish/reread it over some break when I don't have other classes to worry about it.
March 22, 2014
Great one from Dr.Charles
December 31, 2019
أمثلة ممتازة وشرح واضح في الغالب.
December 28, 2023
I read everything except chapter 12, 13, 17-19. This textbook is well written and I'd say it achieves the purpose of teaching students the fundamentals of circuits really well. It was enjoyable to read and rarely felt sluggish.
(Edit: how could I forgot, apendix E, supposed to explain how to use MATLAB is nowhere to be found in any copy I've gotten a hold of. I still dont know linear algebra and seeing you could use the inverse matrix instead of using cramers rule made me mad for all the time wasted throughout my reading)
However there were some sub chapters that felt poorly done or "too broad". Chapter 3.9, all of the transistor things made next to no sense. Chapter 6-8 could delve more into how adding resistors work on DC RLC circuits (although this is somewhat covered in chapter 16). Chapter 7.4 with the singularity functions, even after several readings I failed to see where the unit ramp function came into place. Chapter 14.4 onwards was an unintelligible ride to say the least and, lastly, chapter 15.3, more specifically the time periodicity property of the Laplace transformation. WHAT? Example 15.6 goes from one statement to the other without explaining why and while it seems like a straightforward shortcut to doing the integration over the period it just doesn't make sense why it works. I also couldn't find anyone online solving said example with their same method which is sad as it really looks far easier than having to integrate.
I do get that some of these are topics that are covered in other, more specific classes and textbooks but the chapters felt confident in their presentation which only served to make me feel incompetent for not understanding a sentence that I read 5 times.
Then again, those are a few bad things in a mountain of great things. The problems at the end of the chapters are fun to do and good at hammering the theory in.
(Edit: how could I forgot, apendix E, supposed to explain how to use MATLAB is nowhere to be found in any copy I've gotten a hold of. I still dont know linear algebra and seeing you could use the inverse matrix instead of using cramers rule made me mad for all the time wasted throughout my reading)
However there were some sub chapters that felt poorly done or "too broad". Chapter 3.9, all of the transistor things made next to no sense. Chapter 6-8 could delve more into how adding resistors work on DC RLC circuits (although this is somewhat covered in chapter 16). Chapter 7.4 with the singularity functions, even after several readings I failed to see where the unit ramp function came into place. Chapter 14.4 onwards was an unintelligible ride to say the least and, lastly, chapter 15.3, more specifically the time periodicity property of the Laplace transformation. WHAT? Example 15.6 goes from one statement to the other without explaining why and while it seems like a straightforward shortcut to doing the integration over the period it just doesn't make sense why it works. I also couldn't find anyone online solving said example with their same method which is sad as it really looks far easier than having to integrate.
I do get that some of these are topics that are covered in other, more specific classes and textbooks but the chapters felt confident in their presentation which only served to make me feel incompetent for not understanding a sentence that I read 5 times.
Then again, those are a few bad things in a mountain of great things. The problems at the end of the chapters are fun to do and good at hammering the theory in.
February 2, 2021
Güzel kitap, konular anlaşılır bir şekilde anlatılmış ve birçok örneğe yer verilmiş.
March 2, 2021
This is a very decent introduction to electric circuits. The books covers the very basics of the subject theory. It has tons of examples and exercises.
May 20, 2023
The concepts are spoon fed with ample numericals.
January 24, 2024
I'm still alive. :)
June 20, 2021
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very Understandable First Book on Electric Circuits
February 4, 2006
Since the reviews for most of the other first Circuit Analysis books I could find were fairly uniform in their negative opinion on the understandability of those books, I was worried about this book. But, since the reviews of the previous version were very good, I thought I'd give it a try. Basically, I'm very impressed with it. Since I'm working through the book on my own without any peers or professors available to clarify things, the book I use HAS to be readable. This one is. The authors clearly explain almost everything (there are a few minor omissions of (non-core) material that the authors consider to be Intuitively Obvious to the Most Casual Observer (i.e., stuff they thought everyone would have run into from everyday life)). Within each section of each chapter, they immediately follow every concept with several Examples showing how to work with the material and Practice problems for the reader to do. So, if you don't immediately understand the theory, there are several applications available to help you along. At the end of the chapter, the book includes:
- A Summary of the material covered.
- Answered Review Questions.
- About 100 Exercises. These are broken up into sections so you know which ones require what material. The odd ones are answered at the back of the book.
- Comprehensive Exercises which use all the material covered.
In the Preface, the authors describe the book as:
"...[W]ritten for a two-semester or three-quarter course in linear circuit analysis.... It is broadly divided into three parts. Part 1, consisting of Chapters 1 to 8, is devoted to dc circuits.... Part 2, which contains Chapter 9 to 14, deals with ac circuits.... Part 3, consisting of Chapters 15 to 19 is devoted to advanced techniques for network analysis.... [T]he main prerequisites... are physics and calculus. A very important asset of this text is that ALL the mathematical equations and fundamentals of physics needed by the student are included in the text."
From what I can see, that's a very good description of the book.
The only negatives I can find in the book are all minor. Occasionally, there's a wrong answer (AFAIK). There are also a couple of cases where the authors put new information into the exercises instead of covering it in the text. Slightly more serious is that in some cases the Example and Sample problems focus on problems with certain attributes. But, the Exercises will then focus on problems with entirely different (unexplained) attributes. It takes some work to translate these into the material covered in the section. Also, I'd have preferred having Exercises at the end of each section instead of clumped together at the end of the chapter. The end-of-chapter Exercises should be limited to the Review Questions and Comprehensive Exercises. It would also have been nice if McGraw Hill had provided a PDF version of the book on their web site (ARIS) for registered users (there's a registration code in the front of the book).
My biggest complaint is probably regarding the tools used in the book: PSpice (a circuit simulator), KCIDE (an integrated design environment for circuit analysis), and MATLAB (a symbolic manipulator and solver). PSpice 9.1 used throughout the text of the book. Unfortunately, KCIDE uses PSpice 10.0. From what I can find on the web, the two PSpice versions don't play nicely together. So, you really have a choice of using the version of the tool used in the book or using the version required by another tool used in the book. MATLAB, unlike PSpice and KCIDE, doesn't have a free student version. As a replacement for it, I used Maxima (available from SourceForge).
Still, all the complaints are minor. I found the book to be very readable and rate it at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5.
Very Understandable First Book on Electric Circuits
February 4, 2006
Since the reviews for most of the other first Circuit Analysis books I could find were fairly uniform in their negative opinion on the understandability of those books, I was worried about this book. But, since the reviews of the previous version were very good, I thought I'd give it a try. Basically, I'm very impressed with it. Since I'm working through the book on my own without any peers or professors available to clarify things, the book I use HAS to be readable. This one is. The authors clearly explain almost everything (there are a few minor omissions of (non-core) material that the authors consider to be Intuitively Obvious to the Most Casual Observer (i.e., stuff they thought everyone would have run into from everyday life)). Within each section of each chapter, they immediately follow every concept with several Examples showing how to work with the material and Practice problems for the reader to do. So, if you don't immediately understand the theory, there are several applications available to help you along. At the end of the chapter, the book includes:
- A Summary of the material covered.
- Answered Review Questions.
- About 100 Exercises. These are broken up into sections so you know which ones require what material. The odd ones are answered at the back of the book.
- Comprehensive Exercises which use all the material covered.
In the Preface, the authors describe the book as:
"...[W]ritten for a two-semester or three-quarter course in linear circuit analysis.... It is broadly divided into three parts. Part 1, consisting of Chapters 1 to 8, is devoted to dc circuits.... Part 2, which contains Chapter 9 to 14, deals with ac circuits.... Part 3, consisting of Chapters 15 to 19 is devoted to advanced techniques for network analysis.... [T]he main prerequisites... are physics and calculus. A very important asset of this text is that ALL the mathematical equations and fundamentals of physics needed by the student are included in the text."
From what I can see, that's a very good description of the book.
The only negatives I can find in the book are all minor. Occasionally, there's a wrong answer (AFAIK). There are also a couple of cases where the authors put new information into the exercises instead of covering it in the text. Slightly more serious is that in some cases the Example and Sample problems focus on problems with certain attributes. But, the Exercises will then focus on problems with entirely different (unexplained) attributes. It takes some work to translate these into the material covered in the section. Also, I'd have preferred having Exercises at the end of each section instead of clumped together at the end of the chapter. The end-of-chapter Exercises should be limited to the Review Questions and Comprehensive Exercises. It would also have been nice if McGraw Hill had provided a PDF version of the book on their web site (ARIS) for registered users (there's a registration code in the front of the book).
My biggest complaint is probably regarding the tools used in the book: PSpice (a circuit simulator), KCIDE (an integrated design environment for circuit analysis), and MATLAB (a symbolic manipulator and solver). PSpice 9.1 used throughout the text of the book. Unfortunately, KCIDE uses PSpice 10.0. From what I can find on the web, the two PSpice versions don't play nicely together. So, you really have a choice of using the version of the tool used in the book or using the version required by another tool used in the book. MATLAB, unlike PSpice and KCIDE, doesn't have a free student version. As a replacement for it, I used Maxima (available from SourceForge).
Still, all the complaints are minor. I found the book to be very readable and rate it at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5.
February 21, 2013
I was told that this book would be the best reference I could find on circuit analysis. Well, so far I couldn't find a book on this subject that fits my needs, but this one is certainly far away from it. And also far away from being the best reference on circuit analysis. I found the text so annoying, and there are so many mistakes on the text, on the examples, on the exercises...
Summarising, don't waste your time on it.
Summarising, don't waste your time on it.
December 1, 2016
It is very didactic and an interesting option for autodidacts. Contains several illustrations and examples and there's a complete solutions manual on the internet.
The con of the book is that it presents many results in circuit theory without any reasoning (specially on the three-phase part) at all.
The con of the book is that it presents many results in circuit theory without any reasoning (specially on the three-phase part) at all.
July 10, 2021
Buen libro para aprender a resolver circuitos eléctricos, es muy didáctico y amigable, ejercicios muy ilustrativos, bien explicado, problemas de nivel básico a medio, para complementar el estudiante es bueno que resuelva problemas de otros libros, por ejemplo: el libro de circuitos eléctricos de Nilsson trae problemas mas avanzados.
August 13, 2016
I read it as course book in my three courses and found it very easy and very very helpful in my understanding of electric circuits. in that time i found it somewhat difficult but now whenever i stuck in any kind of electric circuits problem i use it and most of the time my problem got solved.
September 1, 2019
My start of engineering studies was quite shaky, mostly because of the textbook wasn't very friendly. I found this book at the end of the semester and since then I've often wondered, how joyful learning could be if I knew about this book in the beginning!
This is an exemplary textbook
This is an exemplary textbook
May 16, 2020
Great introductory book to electric circuits topic. It provides a clear and nice explanation, coupled with helpful examples, and bunch of challenging problems to solve. Quite easy to understand even if English is not your first language.
Read
April 29, 2007the great book i ever hav on the topic of problem solving in electricircuits i prefer all young students to hav a copy of this book with them
May 21, 2013
Couldn't say I LIKED it, being selected as the textbook in class, though it still helped a lot in my understanding in electric circuit behaviors.
Read
October 21, 2013goood
May 17, 2015
Is very good, like a dream!
March 23, 2016
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews