I'd like to give you my two cents as well on how to proceed here. If nothing else, this will be a second opinion. If I could redo my physics education, this is how I'd want it done.

If you are truly wanting to learn these fields in depth I cannot stress how important it is to actually work problems out of these books, not just read them. There is a certain understanding that comes from struggling with problems that you just can't get by reading the material. On that note, I would recommend getting the Schaum's outline to whatever subject you are studying if you can find one. They are great books with hundreds of solved problems and sample problems for you to try with the answers in the back. When you get to the point you can't find Schaums anymore, I would recommend getting as many solutions manuals as possible. The problems will get very tough, and it's nice to verify that you did the problem correctly or are on the right track, or even just look over solutions to problems you decide not to try.

Basics

I second Stewart's Calculus cover to cover (except the final chapter on differential equations) and Halliday, Resnick and Walker's Fundamentals of Physics. Not all sections from HRW are necessary, but be sure you have the fundamentals of mechanics, electromagnetism, optics, and thermal physics down at the level of HRW.

Once you're done with this move on to studying differential equations. Many physics theorems are stated in terms of differential equations so really getting the hang of these is key to moving on. Differential equations are often taught as two separate classes, one covering ordinary differential equations and one covering partial differential equations. In my opinion, a good introductory textbook to ODEs is one by Morris Tenenbaum and Harry Pollard. That said, there is another book by V. I. Arnold that I would recommend you get as well. The Arnold book may be a bit more mathematical than you are looking for, but it was written as an introductory text to ODEs and you will have a deeper understanding of ODEs after reading it than your typical introductory textbook. This deeper understanding will be useful if you delve into the nitty-gritty parts of classical mechanics. For partial differential equations I recommend the book by Haberman. It will give you a good understanding of different methods you can use to solve PDEs, and is very much geared towards problem-solving.

From there, I would get a decent book on Linear Algebra. I used the one by Leon. I can't guarantee that it's the best book out there, but I think it will get the job done.

This should cover most of the mathematical training you need to move onto the intermediate level physics textbooks. There will be some things that are missing, but those are usually covered explicitly in the intermediate texts that use them (i.e. the Delta function). Still, if you're looking for a good mathematical reference, my recommendation is Lua. It may be a good idea to go over some basic complex analysis from this book, though it is not necessary to move on.

Intermediate

At this stage you need to do intermediate level classical mechanics, electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, and thermal physics at the very least. For electromagnetism, Griffiths hands down. In my opinion, the best pedagogical book for intermediate classical mechanics is Fowles and Cassidy. Once you've read these two books you will have a much deeper understanding of the stuff you learned in HRW. When you're going through the mechanics book pay particular attention to generalized coordinates and Lagrangians. Those become pretty central later on. There is also a very old book by Robert Becker that I think is great. It's problems are tough, and it goes into concepts that aren't typically covered much in depth in other intermediate mechanics books such as statics. I don't think you'll find a torrent for this, but it is 5 bucks on Amazon. That said, I don't think Becker is necessary. For quantum, I cannot recommend Zettili highly enough. Get this book. Tons of worked out examples. In my opinion, Zettili is the best quantum book out there at this level. Finally for thermal physics I would use Mandl. This book is merely sufficient, but I don't know of a book that I liked better.

This is the bare minimum. However, if you find a particular subject interesting, delve into it at this point. If you want to learn Solid State physics there's Kittel. Want to do more Optics? How about Hecht. General relativity? Even that should be accessible with Schutz. Play around here before moving on. A lot of very fascinating things should be accessible to you, at least to a degree, at this point.

Advanced

Before moving on to physics, it is once again time to take up the mathematics. Pick up Arfken and Weber. It covers a great many topics. However, at times it is not the best pedagogical book so you may need some supplemental material on whatever it is you are studying. I would at least read the sections on coordinate transformations, vector analysis, tensors, complex analysis, Green's functions, and the various special functions. Some of this may be a bit of a review, but there are some things Arfken and Weber go into that I didn't see during my undergraduate education even with the topics that I was reviewing. Hell, it may be a good idea to go through the differential equations material in there as well. Again, you may need some supplemental material while doing this. For special functions, a great little book to go along with this is Lebedev.

Beyond this, I think every physicist at the bare minimum needs to take graduate level quantum mechanics, classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and statistical mechanics. For quantum, I recommend Cohen-Tannoudji. This is a great book. It's easy to understand, has many supplemental sections to help further your understanding, is pretty comprehensive, and has more worked examples than a vast majority of graduate text-books. That said, the problems in this book are LONG. Not horrendously hard, mind you, but they do take a long time.

Unfortunately, Cohen-Tannoudji is the only great graduate-level text I can think of. The textbooks in other subjects just don't measure up in my opinion. When you take Classical mechanics I would get Goldstein as a reference but a better book in my opinion is Jose/Saletan as it takes a geometrical approach to the subject from the very beginning. At some point I also think it's worth going through Arnold's treatise on Classical. It's very mathematical and very difficult, but I think once you make it through you will have as deep an understanding as you could hope for in the subject.

Hey! I can relate exactly to where your'e coming from. I, some years ago, decided I wanted to get into building synths. I ended up getting a job at a pedal company and have spent more time learning to build and repair pedals than synths. I don't work there anymore, but it gave me a lot of perspective into the field as we also made euro-rack modules.

First up: I don't want to scare you off from this, but just want to give you a realistic perspective so that you go into this knowing what you are getting into. Making synths is hard and it's expensive. As far as electronic projects go, making a synthesizer is up there on the list. I've repaired powerplant turbine controller circuitboards that were simpler than some of the synths I've owned. This isn't to say, "don't do it!" but, expect to learn a lot of fundamental and intermediate stuff before you ever have something like a fully-featured synth that you built in your hands.

It's also expensive. A cheap synth prototype is going to cost a couple hundred bucks, easy, while a more fully-featured prototype could cost into the thousands to produce, and that's just to build one working prototype. If you want to make a run of products you're going to need money up front, and not a small amount. So, just be prepared for that inevitability.

One final note is that my perspective is broad (digital and analog) but is rooted in analog electronics because that's where I started. This isn't the only path you can take to get to where you want to go but honestly in my opinion, even if you're going to go mostly digital later, you need to understand analog.

If you have never messed with electronics much before I highly recommend the Make: Electronics book. I'm a hands-on person and this was the most effective book I found that let me study electronics fundamentals the way I wanted to; by making stuff! No matter which direction you go on (digital, analog, hybrid, DSP, SID, etc) you're going to want to know how to pick the right resistor, or how to pop an LED into a circuit, and this book will teach you that.

Solid follow-up books from there are Make: More Electronics, Practical Electronics for Inventors, How To Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic, and The Art of Electronics. All of these books are good books that touch on different concepts you will find useful, so I encourage you to look through them and decide for yourself which of these interests you.

Around this same time, I'd encourage you to start getting into kits. Honestly, before you build anything synth, I'm going to recommend you build some pedals. Effects pedals are fun and rewarding to build without being too hard. Start with a distortion circuit and work your way up from there. Once you can build a delay pedal without freaking out, move on to euro-rack kits, or other synth kits. While you're building these kits, don't just build them, play with the circuits! Try swapping components where you think you can, or adding features. One of my first kits was a distortion pedal with a single knob, but by the time I was done tweaking on it it had five knobs and two toggle switches!

Once you're feeling somewhat comfortable with electronics, then you can dive into the holy grail of analog synth design: Make: Analog Synthesizers this amazing book was written by the brilliant Ray Wilson who recently passed away. His life's goal was to bring the art of building analog synths into the hands of anyone who wanted to learn, and there is no better place to receive his great wisdom than this book. You should also check out his website Music From Outer Space along the way, but the book covers so much more than his website.

If you make through most or all of those resources you are going to be well-equipped to take on a career in synth-building! I'm personally still on that last step (trying to find the time to tackle Make: Analog Synthesizers) but hope within the next year or two to get that under my belt and start diving in deep myself. It's been a fun journey of learning and discovery and I wouldn't trade the skills I've gained in electronics for much.

Hope this helps, good luck!

> code things into real life seems like a blast

It is! :-) And it's so easy compared to starting with a bare microcontroller.

> 0 experience whe nit comes to working with hardware

Kits usually explain a bit about resistors and such, but I'd strongly recommend to also pick up a beginner electronics book. These are simple and fun to read! :-)

• Getting started in electronics
  
  
• Notebook doodle style, super simple. Not only for kids despite the electron smileys showing you how electricity works. Electronics in an intuitive fashion, from winding a coil around a nail to build an electro magnet to simple circuits (and beyond).
  
  
• Practical electronics for inventors
  
  
• Still an easy read, but more background info :-)
  
   
  
  > sensors and motors and stuff
  
  > laserpointer
  
  Laser modules cost $0.15 or so at Aliexpress, Servos $1... Everything is so inexpensive it's great to build all sorts of crazy machines ;-)
  
  
   
  
  > What arduino
  
  Most guides and books will probably talk about the UNO. You can get a compatible board for around $3, but a Nano also works in the same fashion and sits nicely on a breadboard.
  
  For the UNO, you have all sorts of modules/shields, but there's nothing you can't hook up to one of the smaller boards.
  
  Also order an ESP8266 based board, like the $3 Nodemcu or D1 Mini. The ESP8266 has wifi built in and can run stand-alone, as it's a microcontroller with more memory as the UNO/Nano :-) But it's 3.3v, has only one analog input, and it's a bit more work when starting out.
  
   
  
  > What
  
  You could get a kit if you would like all sorts of sensors and modules.
  
  The Chinese starter kits are super cheap ($22 with UNO compatible, $26 with MEGA). As Aliexpress links often trigger the spam filter, search for 1207150873 or 32543887265.
  
  The differences are subtle, some kits lack the ultrasonic sensor (<=$1), etc.
  
  What's also a LOT of fun is a 2wd robot car kit, you can get them for $15 or so. Two geared motors, dual H-Bridge, put an Arduino + Ultrasonic sensor on it, and with ten lines of code, it will be an obstacle avoiding car or line follower ;-)
  
   
  
  These kits usually don't have great instructions. If that's what you want, get the official Arduino starter kit, or something from Sparkfun, Adafruit etc.
  
  The Arduino site, instructables, and all kind of blogs have examples for almost every module/sensor/device you can find :-) Find a good guide, such as t
  h
  [e](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYutciIGBqC34bfijBdYch49oyU-B_ttH
  )
  s
  e, and see if that would work for you.
  
   
  
  The only down-side when going with the compatible Arduino boards: You will have to install a different driver manually (oh noes).
  
   
  
  If you don't have one already: A soldering iron.
  
  I know, when starting, soldering sucks. You want to do everything on a breadboard, reservable. But I found out way too late how great and time saving soldering is once you use a decent soldering iron ;-) Most will recommend something like FX888D or better, but a $15-$20 adjustable soldering station can work as well for the occasional soldering job. And there's a soldering comic :-)
  
   
  
  A multimeter is a must-have as well. $3 ones work for simple resistance and voltage readings. For high voltage / high current tasks, they might burst into flames and double as fire-starter, ideal in the cold winter time.
  
  Part testers for $15 can be neat, they identify parts (is this a NPN or PNP transistor... or something else?).
  
  Cheap regulated $20 power supplies can be nice as well.
  
   
  
  Edit: Bunch of capacitors, resistors, transistors (Bags of 100-500 for $1-$2 via ebay), and whatever sensors you need ;-)
  
   
  
  
  Sorry for the long post :-) It's always difficult to tell how much experience and equipment someone already has.

Okay, you're definitely at the beginning. I'll clarify a few things and then recommend some resources.

1. Places to buy components: Depending on where you live in the world, the large component suppliers are almost always the way to go, with smaller suppliers like Adafruit/Sparkfun if you need development boards or specialised things. I buy almost exclusively from Digikey -- they have $8 flat shipping to Canada, which typically arrives the next day, with no customs fees. They have some sort of agreement in place where they cover these costs. This *always* saves money over going to my local stores where the prices are inflated. It's crazy how cheap some things are. If I need a few 2.2K 1206 resistors for a project, I just buy a reel of 1000 because they are so cheap.
   
2. "Steer a joystick with an app" Do you mean connect motors to it and have them move the joystick for you? You're going to want some sort of microcontroller platform, along with a motor controller and way to communicate with a smartphone app. You mention you know C++ so it will be easy to switch to C. This is both true and false. Programming for microcontrollers is not the same as programming for computers. You are much closer to the hardware, typically manipulating many registers directly instead of abstracting it away. Each microcontroller vendor has their own tools and compilers, although *some* do support GCC or alternatives. You mentioned PIC, which is a line of microcontrollers by a large company called Microchip. There are 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit PICs, all at different price points and with hugely differing capabilities. Selecting the microcontroller for a project can be half the battle sometimes. Or, like me, you can just go with whatever you have on hand (which is usually MSP430s or PIC32MX's)
   
3. A lot of people will recommend the book The Art of Electronics. It's decent, but it's not for everyone. Some really like the conversational style, others don't. Many people who want to get into microcontroller programming and embedded development want to skip over the fundamentals and just get something working. For those, I point them to Arduino and let them on their merry way. However, if you actually want to learn something, I highly recommend buying an actual microcontroller development board, learning the fundamentals about electrical circuits, and programming in actual C with actual IDEs.
   
4. As far as resources go, again it depends on your actual goal. Whenever I want to learn a new tool (like a PCB layout software, or a new IDE) I always start with a simple project. Having an end point to reach will keep you motivated when things seem complicated. Your controlling a joystick with motors is a great starting point. I would buy a development board, Microchip PICs are popular, as are ST32s, and MSP430. It doesn't really matter that much in the long run. Just don't tie yourself too hard to one brand. Then pick up some stepper motors, and a stepper motor control board (grab one from Sparkfun/Adafruit, etc). Get yourself a breadboard, and some breadboard jumpers, a cheap power supply (there are tons available now for cheap that are pretty decent), and then jump in head first!
   
5. I highly recommend the book Making Embedded Systems by Elecia White, once you've covered the basics. It's a great way to learn more about how professionals actually design things. For the basics, you can watch *EARLY* EEVBlog videos (anything past around video 600/650 he gets progressively more annoying and set in his ways, another topic entirely, but the early stuff is decent). I'd also recommend picking up your choice of books about the fundamentals -- Electronics for Dummies, the aforementioned Art of Electronics, Making Embedded Systems, The Art of Designing Embedded Systems, and even stuff like Design Patterns for Embedded Systems in C. Again, it all depends on what your goal is. If you want to do embedded design, then you'll need to focus on that. If you're more into analog circuits, then maybe check out The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design. Either way, grounding yourself in the fundamentals will help a LOT later on. It will make reading schematics way easier.
   
   I feel like I've gone off on a few tangents, but just ask for clarification if you want. I'd be happy to point you towards other resources.

I did learn all of this stuff from experience. Honestly, I had a little bit of a tough time right out of college because I didn't have much practical circuit design experience. I now feel like I have a very good foundation for that and it came through experience, learning from my peers, and lots of research. I have no affiliation with Henry Ott, but I treat his book like a bible . I refer to it just about every time I do a board design. Why? because it's packed with this type of practical information. Here's his book. I bought mine used as cheap as I could. At my previous job, they just had one in the library. Either way, it was good to have around.

So why should you care about electromagnetic compatibility (EMC)? A couple reasons:

1. EMC compliance is often regulated by industry and because a product requirement. The types of tests that your product has to pass is dependent on the industry typically, but in general there are tests where bad things are injected into your board and tests where they measure how noisy your board. You have to pass both.
   
2. EMC compliance, in my opinion, is very well correlated with the reliability and quality of a product. If a product is destroyed "randomly" or stops working when the microwave is on, you're not likely to have a good opinion of that product. Following guidelines like the one I did above is the path to avoiding problems like that.
   
3. EMC design is usually not taught in schools and yet it is the most important part of the design (besides making it perform the required product function in the first place). It also is very hard to understand because many of the techniques for improving your design do not necessarily show up on your schematics. Often, it's about how well your layout your board, how the mechanical design for the enclosure of your board is considered, etc.
   
   Anyways, it's definitely worth looking at and is a huge asset if you can follow those guidelines. Be prepared to enter the workforce and see rampant disregard for EMC best practices as well as rampant EMC problems in existing products. This is common because, as I said, it's not taught and engineers often don't know what tools to use to fix it. It often leads to expensive solutions where a few extra caps and a better layout would have sufficed.
   
   A couple more books I personally like and use:
   
   Howard Johnson, High Speed Digital Design (it's from 1993, but still works well)
   
   Horowitz and Hill, The Art of Electronics (good for understanding just about anything, good for finding tricks and ideas to help you for problems you haven't solved before but someone probably has)
   
   Last thing since I'm sitting here typing anyways:
   
   When I first got out of college, I really didn't trust myself even when I had done extensive research on a particular part of design. I was surrounded by engineers who also didn't have the experience or knowledge to say whether I was on the right path or not. It's important to use whatever resources you have to gain experience, even if those resources are books alone. It's unlikely that you will be lucky and get a job working with the world's best EE who will teach you everything you need to know. When I moved on from my first job after college, I found out that I was on the right path on many things thanks to my research and hard work. This was in opposition to my thinking before then as my colleagues at my first job were never confident in our own ability to "do EE the right way" - as in, the way that engineers at storied, big companies like Texas Instruments and Google had done. Hope that anecdotal story pushes you to keep going and learning more!

A couple of recommendations:

First, there are the classic Forrest Mims books they are the quintessential beginner level books. Radio Shack used to sell them. They are very introductory and tend to be rather brief for easy consumption. I'm not a huge fan of the style personally but others LOVE them a lot. Many many many hobbyists and engineers got their start with these books.

Another option I like a lot is Practical Electronics for Inventors, 3rd Ed. by Paul Scherz and Simon Monk. This book is a great beginners book that will take you nicely into circuit theory and things like that. Not as advanced as an academic tome but advanced enough for you to learn a good amount and establish a solid foundation.

Lastly, there is the very advanced Art of Electronics 3rd Ed. by Horowitz and Hill. This is the classic introductory text for engineers and hobbyists alike. It is very math heavy but you will have a very very good understanding of what's going on.

One non-book recommendation is the AllAboutCircuits online textbook tutorial. It is pretty well enumerated and detailed, though it is a bit lacking in sample problems. A great free resource that you can start learning now.

Beyond this, once you get a solid foundation. You can start focusing in specific areas like digital, power, precision measurements, etc.

I remember doing 2 years of almost solid maths, thermodynamics and fluid dynamics, solids, materials etc. It was so uninspiring that I started teaching myself programming (C++) and playing around with 3d graphics (ah, good old days when Quake was the shit!)
I got good grades, but I was not a model student. So, although my 3rd and 4th year focused on 'mechatronic' subjects, I graduated not really knowing what a transistor was or how to solder anything. I was a decent programmer though.

Luckily, I got a job with a really patient, knowledgeable guy who helped me fill in the gaps. I coded stuff, but he explained how the hardware worked, I sometimes understood (or pretended, and when I couldn't figure it out later we went over it again).

I highly recommend this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336

So here's what worked for me: (eventually :) )

• Get a practical grasp of basic electronics. Thevenin and Kirchoff and all that are important, but ...
  
• No matter how good the book/teacher, the best way to learn something is to actually DO IT.
  
• Learn C or C++
  
  So, as far as practical stuff goes:
  
  Start basic.
  
  
• Get a LED. Turn it on or off with a switch. Make it brighter. Make it dimmer.
  
• Use a transistor/FET in the switching circuit.
  
• Use a GPIO / micro controller to turn it off and on.
  
• Make it turn on for 1 second, off for 1 second. Repeatedly.
  Bonus
  
• Make the duty cycle dependent on a trimpot / variable resistor
  
  Get More Practical:
  
  
• Get an old printer.
  
• Take the stepper motor out of it. (Don't throw anything else away yet)
  
• Make a circuit to drive the motor from GPIO/ microcontroller
  
• Figure out how to make the motor turn. Both ways.
  
  
  
• Make an assembly where the motor drives a "crane arm". You can make it a rotating crane or a linear crane arm (eg, like how the printer heads move). You may need a gearbox.
  
  
• Hang a small weight (load) on the crane.
  
  
• Figure out how to make the crane move from/to a certain position. With minimal load movement.
  Bonus:
  
• Figure out how to move the crane from/to ANY position with minimal load movement.
  
  Old computer power supplies are great if you are on a budget.
  

On the pure electronics side, I have gone through a lot of allaboutcircuits.com, but not all of it. I bought a "wee blinky" a while back as a simple soldering exercise before I was comfortable enough with soldering to trust myself on more expensive components, and when I realized that I had no idea how it worked I did some research. I quickly found this link http://www.falstad.com/circuit/e-multivib-a.html and the site has some fantastic applets of other circuits that I found very useful in quickly understanding how they work. It is much more useful to me than a simple circuit diagram at this point. I also picked up a used copy of this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071452818/ref=oh_o03_s02_i00_details on the cheap, which is generally reviewed well other than it containing a lot of mathematical errors. I am comfortable enough with the math to work through it myself if I need to be sure of something, so that was not a concern for me. At some point I might pick up the "The art of electronics", but costs more than I want to spend right now.

On the projects side I have the Arduino Cookbook, which has been handy for helping me pick out projects to bite off from the comfort of my couch. It also has given me a good sense for what can be done in general and how much effort is involved. Obviously I keep an eye to the discussions here, and I also have spent time looking over the Arduino pages. "Interfacing With Hardware" (http://arduino.cc/playground/Main/InterfacingWithHardware) has some really good stuff linked from it. I look at the stuff John Boxall is doing at tronixstuff. I keep an eye on the make blog, and stuff on ladyada.net. I also look at any interesting Instructables I come across. I suppose I regularly scan most of the popular online channels for this stuff.

Other than that, I have just been biting off projects with no particular end goal in mind. I pick a component I want to get some experience with, get one, and do something with it. Then I pick something else and repeat. I have an assortment of parts on order from taydaelectronics that should arrive mid to late this month. When they get here I will experiment with them for a few weeks, and then order some more different things. Right now I am very much in exploration mode.

Edited for typos, and completeness.

I can recommend you a few things, speaking as a CS/EE double major :)

• Hands on skills are quite important. Learn how to solder, use a DMM, strip wires, etc. There's a lot of tutorials on Youtube and such that show you how to solder well,etc. Watch them and practice.
  
  
• If you're still in school, you may want to consider taking a intro EE course as an elective or similar. If you're not in school but have the time and money, you may want to consider taking a few classes at a nearby college (ie. community college). Alternatively, get a few books/online tutorials and such and self study. I believe MIT OCW has a quite a few EE courses available.
  
  
• Books wise, i recommend the following: Beginning Arduino, Practical Electronics for Inventors, Arduino Cookbook (excellent refference book). Website wise, I recommend t ro n i x s t u f f.
  
  
• Start with the basics. This includes both theory (understanding and applying Ohm's Law) and practice (building actual circuits). Play with the Arduino and LEDs, motors, servo, ultrasonic sensors, etc. Follow tutorials for these BUT know WHY certain things are done in a given way and the reason those things are done. For example, understand why you need a resistor(s) when using LEDs.
  
  
• Once you have the basics down (ie. how to hook up and drive a motor), start a small project. I personally recommend something like an obstacle avoiding or line following robot as it's quite cheap, lots of online help available, easy to understand, etc. Read my post here for more details.
  
  
• Equipment wise, you'll need a few things. Take a look here: http://redd.it/1hoc03 You don't need everything on that list, but get the basics like resistors, capacitors, wires, general purpose PNP/NPN MOSFETs, etc. Then get a few sensors (ie. ultrasonic sensors, photo detectors, temperature sensor, etc) and a few other useful things like shift registers, LCD, piezo buzzer, etc. Also, check out this from /r/electronics.

It seems to me that introductory electromagnetism is, physically, very simple.

If the subject is difficult, I suspect it has more to do with the math than the physics. Unlike introductory mechanics, most problems in E/M rely heavily on vectors and vector calculus (and for many students E/M is also a first introduction to other more sophisticated mathematical ideas, like Laplace's equation and coordinate transformations).

As far as introductory level books go, though, I think Griffiths handles the added mathematical rigour of E/M quite well. Griffiths explains his math in great detail throughout the text, and chapter 1 is a thorough and complete, but straightforward and simple, treatment of vector calculus; I recommend that you study it in great detail (and work many problems) before continuing to the physics. Preparation in linear algebra is probably also helpful as well.

Also, keep in mind that there are several approaches to electromagnetism. As I recall, Griffiths develops the theory more or less historically, and only makes the connection with special relativity in the final chapters. If you want to look at the ideas from another angle, you could try a book like Purcell or Schwartz, which use special relativity to derive magnetism as a theoretical, rather than experimental, result. Personally, I find this approach more elegant, interesting, and even a little easier; nonetheless, understanding both approaches is important in the long run.

Edit: By the way, another book to consider is Shadowitz (I have only read the first 5 chapters, and I still recommend it on that basis alone). Shadowitz develops the basic theory very logically and consistently: chapters 2 through 5 cover the divergence and curl of E and B (one chapter each). At times the explanations are lengthy, but this might be useful for a struggling student.

There are a lot of good suggestions in here, but I'm wondering if any of them are really applicable to what you want to do. An electrodynamics book like Griffiths will come at magnetism from the perspective of field and/or tensor mathematics. A solid state book like Kittel or Ashcroft and Mermin would come at it starting from a phenomenological perspective and moving into things like local moments and band structure. I'm guessing here, but it seems like what you want is more of an idea of the interaction of magnetism and materials or observable phenomena. Either of those approaches would get you there, but it wouldn't be the most direct approach and it would be a lot more work than you need to put in if that's all you want. They would also both require a lot more math than it seems like you're really comfortable with, and both topics are complex enough that physics/chemistry/MSE students struggle with them without good instructors (and sometimes even with them).

Instead of starting with any of those, I'd suggest you look at some lower level, phenomenology and observation based works. Nicola Spaldin's Magnetic Materials: Fundamentals and Applications might be a good place to start. It's pretty low level: I think a motivated undergrad could deal with it after taking a year of freshman physics, but I think that's what you want, at least to start with. It gives a good overview of different kinds of magnetism and the different kinds of magnetic materials, as well as field generation and detection.

Incidentally, if you decide to be a masochist and go with a solid state book, I think Ashcroft & Mermin is a better text than Kittel. Kittel spent 50 years and eight editions trying to fit the new developments in the field into the book without making it significantly thicker, so Ashcroft has a narrower scope but covers what it does have in more depth. I find the writing style clearer and more accessible as well.

The books others have suggested here are all great, but if you've never seen physics with calculus before, you may want to begin with something more accessible. Taylor and Goldstein are aimed at advanced undergraduates and spend almost no time on the elementary formulation of Newtonian mechanics. They're designed to teach you about more advanced methods of mechanics, primarily the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations.

Therefore, I suggest you start with a book that's designed to be introductory. I don't have a particular favorite, but you may enjoy Serway & Jewett or Halliday & Resnick.

Many of us learned out of K&K, as it's been something of a standard in honors intro courses since the seventies. (Oh my god, a new edition? Why?!) However, most of its readers these days have already seen physics with calculus once before, and many of them still find it a difficult read. You may want to see if your school's library has a copy so you can try before you buy.

If you do enjoy the level of K&K, then I strongly encourage you to find a copy of Purcell when you get to studying electricity and magnetism. If you are confident with the math, it is far and away the best book for introductory E&M—there's no substitute! (And personally, I'd strongly suggest you get the original or the second edition used. The third edition made the switch to SI units, which are not well-suited to electromagnetic theory.)

By the way: if you don't care what edition you're getting, and you're okay with international editions, you can get these books really cheaply. For instance: Goldstein, S&J, K&K, Purcell.

Finally, if you go looking for other books or asking other people, you should be aware that "analytical mechanics" often means those more advanced methods you learn in a second course on mechanics. If you just say "mechanics with calculus", people will get the idea of what you're looking for.

A lot of my professors put their video lectures on youtube now so those are a lot of great videos to watch, but I'm not sure on the rules of whether or not I'm supposed to share them so I can only link the ones that have public Youtube channels.

For Electronics (BJTs, MOSFETs, Feedback networks and things like that) you're gonna want to eiter download or buy a copy of this book (https://www.amazon.com/Microelectronic-Circuits-Electrical-Computer-Engineering/dp/0199339139). It's a pretty easy to follow text that is great for learning all the basics of micro electronics. Most universities use is so there are a lot of lectures using that text as reference.

For Digital systems (El E 235), and some useful Engineering matrix math and probability (Engr 310) on this channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCf4G95tHQPnphwpfrkzelgA
and https://www.youtube.com/user/OleMissVLSI (EL E 385 for computer architecture and the like)

For basic circuits this channel is good.
https://www.youtube.com/user/RebelsLoveCircuits

Programming is best learned on codeacademy.com unless you want to learn C or something lower level, in which case i'm not too sure where to do that other than a course or reading a book online.

For your basic math and calculus you'll want
https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickJMT (the real mvp)
and Kahn Academy of course.

Then once you've gotten down the Laplace Transforms and understand the Laplace domain and Frequency domains, you can go onto my favourite topic in El E which is control theory. For that you're gonna want:
https://www.youtube.com/watchv=oBc_BHxw78s&list=PLUMWjy5jgHK1NC52DXXrriwihVrYZKqjk.

I'm not really sure what else there is, but If you can think of any specific topic I can try to find the best material I remember using.

While I understand the desire to make something and see the fruits of your labor, true understanding will come best through reading and research. I mean, you could start making circuits of someone else's design and then play around with the arrangement and values of components, but at best you are really just generating a case-by-case feel of how a particular circuit operates. Doing some calculations with many sets of hypothetical circuits (rather than building a bunch of circuits and playing around and taking measurements) will be a much more efficient way to really get understanding of how these things work.

I would recommend the discrete electronics bible, Horowitz And Hill's The Art of Electronics as well as Malik's Electronic Circuits. (Edit: actually, it's been a while since I've used these books and I can't remember what scope they really cover. I know Malik is a little more advanced and concentrates on state devices like diodes and transistors. Really, a basic engineering circuit analysis textbook might be best)

You should also check out this java applet. It is surprisingly powerful and gives a really good general idea of what electronic components do ('visually' and numerically)

This is a really good question and I'm not sure why exactly you were downvoted. I suspect the elephant in the room is that it's a question but it needs some in depth thinking rather than shitposted to the bottom in two minutes.

As for reading material, I'd go for paper every time myself.

Practical Electronics for Inventors 3e has a lot of nice analog material that's easy to get into and well explained: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0071771336/

It doesn't hit digital at all until about 70% of the way into the book and is in very small chunks of information you can read and think about for a bit. It's huge and cheap for what it is.

You will come out of it with "yay I managed to design a common emitter RF amplifier and filter" rather than "yay I connected to an LED to an arduino and it's flashing!"

Well worth the investment IMHO as one comprehensive and well written text.

After a dive into analog, the best thing is experimenting. Nothing quite works exactly how the textbooks say it does.

It's a fun hobby. Biggest learning curve is learning how to code. I didnt know a thing when I first started but the arduino community (link below) is really helpful with the process. They will even go over code you've written if your having issues.

Arduino community forum:
https://forum.arduino.cc

Book for learning arduino program language:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1430247762/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_jqgLBbP544HBT

A good starter kit. Comes with alot of goodies like the program used to write the code and compile it, the arduino itself, super sonic sensor, DC motors to name a few as well as data sheets for each piece:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EWNUUUA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_krgLBbN85GPHF

Book recommended to me that helps with the more complex builds: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_UrgLBb7STEDSA

My first project I made/wrote was to make a couple LEDs blink in specific intervals. May not seem like much but like I said, biggest learning curve is learning to program the arduino itself.

Good luck

Arduino is a great learning tool and to go from idea to finished project is quite fast. I definitely recommend starting with arduino and see if you like it. If you continue, you'll find that you have to purchase an arduino for each project you start, which can get quite expensive, or you'll be ripping apart old projects to get the arduino.


I purchased arduino and a few shields, but I felt like I really didn't know how everything was working electronically. I really enjoy programming, learning about electronics and making devices, so I decided to stop using arduino and just use the atmega microcontroller, which is the MCU that arduino is based on.


If you wanted to go this route then I would suggest buying an AVR ISP mkii programmer and downloading atmel studio. It's much easier to program the chips than any other method I've tried. Less fiddling. If you have experience in C programming then it will be really easy.


This is the best beginners tutorial I've found for atmel AVR:
https://www.newbiehack.com/


This book is an excellent follow up to that tutorial:
http://www.amazon.ca/Make-Programming-Learning-Software-Hardware/dp/1449355781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398472387&sr=8-1&keywords=make+avr+programming


A good book on electronics - 1000 pages:
http://www.amazon.ca/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336

digikey.ca or .com has lots of parts and next day shipping for $8.


how to make an arduino on a bread board:
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Standalone


Breadboard, Schematic and PCB layout software
http://fritzing.org

Soon you'll be etching PCBs at home

Coax publications! Their books are decent, I wouldn't say the best, but decent. I'm 2/3rds the way through studying for my Advanced as well and I've found it very helpful. Nice thing with their books is access to a practice exam site that got me through my Basic Qualification exam.

Full disclosure I have a computer engineering degree and have a pretty strong background in electronics as well, so I'm able to fill in some gaps. I've found a couple of errors or gaps in the edition I'm studying from. So I'd possibly recommend some supplementary material. Good book for electronics if that's the area you're struggling with is The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill: https://www.amazon.ca/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542256671&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+electronics

Beyond that study and good luck! I'm hoping to take my test early 2019. Been distracted with getting my HF station up and running.

Learning electronics is a lot like music. There is an insane amount of information, but if you get an economic working knowledge under your belt, you can really do some amazing things. In order for you not to get lost in the rabbit hole, I will provide you these methods of learning practical hobby electronics.

First, is simply just a suggestion. There are two "domains" of electronic thinking and analysis: digital and analogue. Fuck analog right in its dumb face. The math used in analog is fucking super duper hard, and analog circuits are prone to interference problems. Digital is where you want to be. It's vastly simpler to use programmable digital parts, and analyze digital circuits. Don't get lost in AC equations of capacitor, or the god damned transistor equation (seriously, fuck that. )

Okay here is how I learned hobby digital electronics:
First buy this, and go through all the examples in the workbooks. When you learn electronics you 100% HAVE TO DO HANDS ON LEARNING! DONT LEARN IT FROM A BOOK! MAKE CIRCUITS!
https://www.amazon.com/Radio-Shack-Electronics-Learning-20-055/dp/B00GYYEL8I

At the same time, read this (which is a good topical explanation, and free):
http://jacquesricher.com/NEETS/

And buy and read this (which is an EXCELLENT formal introduction into the physics):
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336

Also you are going to learn how to program, which is an entirely different topic. Programming and hobby electronics make you a master of the universe, so it's worth it. I learned programming in the electronics domain and it was awesome. I made a microcontroller FM synthesizer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TvuzTK3Dzk

So basically, the way I learned programming in general was self-teaching with books. Again, you have to do it hands-on. Actually complete the examples in the books, and you'll be fine.
First, learn procedural c programming using C primer plus. Buy an older version so it'll be super cheap:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0672326965/ref=sr_1_3_twi_pap_1_olp?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465827790&sr=1-3&keywords=c+primer+plus

Next, learn Object oriented programming using head first java. They do a great job of tackling OOP, which can be a difficult thing to learn.
https://www.amazon.com/Head-First-Java-Kathy-Sierra/dp/0596009208/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465827860&sr=1-1&keywords=head+first+java


You're overwhelmed because they're deep topics. But, seriously, its the most fun shit ever. You'll love learning how to do it.

Wow, thanks fro the great answers /u/crb3 ! Really interesting stuff.

Number 3 I'm going to read through really slowly again to try to makes sure I get it all. Reverse protection diode makes sense. I think I can leave it out since I am using only 9v DC from the wall wart so it'd be hard to get it backwards like a battery. It seems like increasing the value of C3 would allow a larger reservoir of power and less sag?

One question, why does it matter it it is a 0.1 uF MLC cap vs some other type of capacitor, i.e., What desirable properties are exclusive to MLC?

This is exactly what I has hoping for. I'm slowly working through this book now to get a better understanding of this stuff, but practical explanations like the ones you provided are really interesting and provide an awesome supplement to what I have learned so far from the text book!

Next step is the breadboard to try some of this stuff out!

As a student, I can recommend "Practical Electronics For Inventors, Fourth Edition" by Paul Scherz, accompanied by the occasional youtube video and reddit question :)
You can buy it from Amazon here

I havent read any others, so I cant compare the quality, but you can go through it like a book and be able to understand everything. You may run into some problems in the real world that requires some fairly advanced calculus, which the book doesn't cover. (It does cover where to apply it, just not how). It is really extensive (1256 pages on my desktop e-reader), so if you have an idea for something specific you want to build, there might be something more efficient out there :)

I would think that not a lot of electronics books, if any, explain the math in full, so I would suggest that you find an online source for whatever specific piece of math you've run into. I can recommend Kahn academy.

Good luck :)

Hey there! Welcome to the hobby!
For reading, I recommend Practical Electronics for the Inventor. If you're brand new and want something a bit less dense, the Make series is a good place to start.
The box you've got looks a lot like a component kit a friend of mine gave me. He tried the electronics program at ITT before they went under and this is what they gave him. It's got some nice stuff in it and it's great for a beginner.
Now, you want to know what's in there? Google is your best friend. Everything has an identifying code on the side. Punch that into the search bar and 90 percent of the time you'll find everything you need to know about it. It's tedious, but it's the way of things.
Good luck and have fun!

Practical Electronics For Inventors was the one and only reason why I got an A in my Digital Electronics, Circuits I, Circuits II, Electronics I, Electronics II, Elab II, and Elab III classes. It is completely unheard-of at my school for people to get an A in all those classes, but this one book summarizes every topic in a wonderfully practical way. This one book enabled me to get a grasp of all the major basic electronics topics in a unifying, intuitive way.

AllaboutCircuits.com is also very good, and the forums are great, but if you want to genuinely learn in a concise, concrete manner, get this book.

It also teaches you about exactly how all the major types of transistors work in a way that Freshman/Sophomore-level engineers can understand. Honestly, this book will be the best $25 book you'eve ever bought from Amazon if you take Electrical Engineering seriously.

Glad to see you're approaching this from the correct angle. We get this sort of question here all the time, but it's usually "how do i electronics" and they get upset when they find out math is involved.

Definitely follow the math up through precalc, calculus, and differential equations. Learn Laplace transforms if you have time. You'll also want to explore physics pretty far, much of it will apply when you least expect it. Electronics is a mix of applied physics and chemistry. Finally you'll want to learn some thermodynamics. Understanding heat transfer and energy will be pretty useful. For all of these, I would just hunt down some college textbooks and some related Schaum's outlines.

While you're doing that, make sure to dabble in electronics to keep you focused. Build up some assembly, soldering, and possibly circuit layout skill. Definitely find this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957

Well, electronics is a huge field, and especially if you're going to get into software radio, basic fundamentals of amplifiers and modulation techniques is a must. Don't get discouraged though, internet is abound in information.

Here are some books that may help to start:

The Art of Electronics

Especially if you can get the used Cambridge Low Price Edition. Either way, it's a good book for fundamentals, a classic too.

This book is ok:

Communications Receivers

For general electronics knowledge, some undergrad EE textbooks are solid gold.

Here's one that's great:

Circuits, Devices and Systems

Edit:

Another excellent resource for folks dabbling in electronics are these free simulators:

Paul Falstad's Circuit Simulator

Hades

The above are great before one gets to dip into SPICE.

If cost is a concern for your prototype, there's OSH Park. They pool and panel orders and make the boards at a place in Illinois I believe. I haven't used them yet, but will be placing an order in a couple days. For layout help, you might ask on the EE stack exchange site or the Sparkfun forum. Before laying out your board, be sure to set the design rules in your software to those from whichever fab you select. Here's a comparison of boards ordered from OSH Park and two other inexpensive options.

The Art of Electronics has a section on board layout, and there are a bunch of application note PDFs out there from semi companies:

• Circuit Board Layout Techniques (from Op Amps for Everyone)
  
• PCB Design Guidelines
  For Reduced EMI
  
• Using Decoupling Capacitors
  
  These guides are specific to certain microcontrollers, but still have good info:
  
  
• System Design Guidelines for Stellaris Microcontrollers
  
• Getting started with STM32F10xxx hardware development
  
  As someone who recently transitioned a prototype from Arduino/breadboard to a custom board, I'd also suggest you take a look at ARM if you aren't tied to Atmel. The performance for STM32 and Stellaris chips is great considering the cost, and they are almost price competitive with PIC and Atmel chips. TI has a Stellaris launchpad board now, and ST has several cheap eval boards. There is a gcc toolchain for ARM, and the MikroE ARM compiler is a reasonably-priced commercial option (demo up to 8k program space).
  
  What software are you using for layout?

Modern Recording Techniques for actual audio. Professor was a wealth of information, so we used a lot of handouts, but he did give us a recommended reading list:

Assistant Engineer's Handbook

Mastering Audio

Master Handbook of Acoustics

personally, i found having a copy of Practical Electronics for Inventors laying around super useful, as it explains circuits and what different diagram symbols mean and how to build basic circuits - awesome if for some reason you need to troubleshoot a piece of gear or you're just curious about what's going on under the hood

I do highly recommend Genome by Matt Ridley and A History of God by Karen Armstrong. It looks like Before the Big Bang might be a great idea too.

However, I'm noticing a bit of redundancy in your stacks and don't want you to get bored! In the presence of the other books, I would recommend Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale in lieu of The Greatest Show on Earth. (Although, if you're actually not going to read all the other books, I would actually go the other way.) Similarly, I would probably choose either to read the God Delusion or a few of the other books there.

Other recommendations: how about The Red Queen by Matt Ridley, and The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes? These occupy niches not covered by the others.

The popular expositions on cosmology all look supremely awesome, but you should probably choose half of them. Another idea: read just The Fabric of the Cosmos by Greene, and if you love it, go ahead and learn mechanics, vector calculus, Electrodynamics, linear algebra, and Quantum Mechanics! Hmm...on second thought, that might actually take longer than just reading those books :)

http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Berkeley-Physics-Course/dp/0070049084/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1293309823&sr=8-1

It's really expensive because it's out of print, but I sprung for a nice like new hardcover copy on eBay (because it's the book my school uses for the intro to E&M course) and it's pretty good (you can find it for much cheaper if you buy the Int'l edition on eBay). I think between this one and Griffiths, you would be pretty good.

I started with circuit bending. I took a student-taught class as part of the Oberlin College ExCo, which is the Experimental College, where any student can teach a class for a single credit, provided they can demonstrate to a faculty panel that they have something to teach and a plan on how to teach it. That got me started on instrument building, and also on circuit design. I worked on that as a hobby for several years, until eventually I was friends with some people who were getting into Eurorack manufacturing: the 4MS crew, when they were still in Austin. Ralph and Dan encouraged me to move from bending (and breaking) toys into creating circuits, and gave me a few good starting tips (and copies of a few Forrest Mims books, which are absolutely invaluable). Another year or two after that, I was talking with Mickey, and he mentioned that he had the good problem that his modules were selling too fast, and he was bored of soldering, and wanted more time to design. I piped up quick. "I know how to solder! I'm very good at it." The second part was a lie. It's true now, though! Everything more advanced that I know about circuits I've learned from Mickey, the internet, and a bit more book learnin', especially from The Art of Electronics. I told the story of getting started on the pedal (which was my first commercial pedal) elsewhere in this thread.

The biggest hiccup was finding ROHS compliant vactrols! But we're cool on that now. Thanks, XVIVE!

Dover Principles of Electrodynamics (used, very good or better, please, so there's no writing to distract me from my own musings) -- it would help me prepare for my comprehensive exams! =)

I was schooled by my mother after elementary/secondary school -- she figured she could home-school me after I returned home from public school. My mom introduced me to the scientific method at a very early age, intriguing me about the nature of the world by pointing out things and asking for my observations, a valuable lesson that's made my life endlessly delightful. =)

Hey, good luck on this! I made the opposite swap: studied physics as an undergraduate, then studied mathematics in grad school. I'm now a professor in a math department, though I still do some (mildly) physics-related work. Since nobody else has answered yet, I'll say what I can:

1. You're certainly not too old - there are plenty of stories of people getting started in research at a much later age. The most likely problem is that you'd be graduating around 30-33, then probably moving for a postdoc, then probably moving again... and throughout that, you won't be making tons of money. For some people, that isn't a problem. For many people (including me), that can be a frustrating way to live. Of course, this all depends a huge amount on your partner.
   
   
2. Research is everything! But I think you're really asking two questions: do you need research experience, and do you need physics research experience? For the first, most schools take plenty of people without undergrad research; even at top physics schools, very few people have done meaningful research before. So don't worry too much on that front. Of course, the subject does matter, and this will certainly matter for your application. For some areas of physics, you'll just be a bit behind. For other areas, you'll be a lot behind. Think about that when discussing your research in the application.
   
   
3. This is the standard electrodynamics book: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-Edition-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_y
   The amazon page also suggests a quantum book and a mechanics book; those seem pretty reasonable choices as well. With respect to the math, the background for doing physics research is quite different from what most math majors get. Physicists do a lot of PDEs, ODEs, calculus of variations, and differential geometry. This is pretty serious stuff.
   
   
4. This is a pretty broad subject. What is your math background like? In any case, from a day-to-day perspective, doing mathematical physics often just means doing mathematics...
   
   
5. I have no idea what this means.
   
   
6. Are you in the US? Many schools have undergrad research programs. Many big labs also hire lab techs. This can be a good warmup, but of course requires relevant skills.
   
   
7. Maybe. Chances of getting a faculty job go down with grad school ranking, but they aren't exactly 100% even at e.g. Princeton, and aren't 0 even at the bottom. I'm a pretty cautious person myself, and probably wouldn't have gone to grad school if I knew more about the job market.
   
   
8. Sure. There are practice tests out there; you can see how you're doing. The physics GRE isn't trivial, but it isn't "hard" the same way research is hard. It is just a tricky exam. This is also probably a reasonable way to show people that you've picked up some physics; in that sense it might be more important (and useful) to you than it is to most applicants.
   

OK, you seem like you are trying to learn, and are asking questions, that is a good thing, and even if someone cringes at your terms, that's OK, you have gotten some good links for the terms and how to use them. Don't be put off.

Now I am going to recommend you see if you can get The Art of Electronics 3rd ed and Learning The Art of Electronics, get the ones with the gold covers. They are expensive, but you will learn huge amounts by working through the Learning book. When I was teaching college labs, I would recommend students get these books (2nd ed at the time). You can find all this information online, and you can learn it that way, but these books are excellent and well worth the cost if you can pull it together.

You've got a lot of good advice in this post that pretty much covers what I was gonna say. I can relate to you when you say that you really understand the subject by working through all the details and the math. However, I've found that when it's time to actually put theory to practice, a lot of times you can't do it directly because the problem at hand is way too complex. And like you said, that approach takes a very long time. So, a compromise I've made is that I just start doing the project, and then learn the theory in parallel. That way, you sort of start to get both the intuition and the solid foundations behind what you're trying to work on.

Also, a practical book I'd recommend is Practical Antenna Handbook. I've skimmed through it and it seems like a really good book to get a feeling for working with antennas. It's definitely on my to-read list. If you really want the nitty-gritty of antenna theory, I've heard good things about Balanis and Kraus.

Talking about one universal electric field is counterintuitive. While RRC is technically correct, (EM fields do obey superposition, and are defined throughout all space), this is semantics and detrimental to learning if you are not an expert. Unfortunately, this is reddit, where semantics are the most important aspect of a post. There ARE individual electromagnetic fields. If you want, you can say that these all add together to form one giant universal field, but why would you (considering most drop off to ~zero in a relatively short distance)? When it comes to the universal aspect, think of the electromagnetic force as being universal.

To get to the questions.

1. Not really. Electromagnetic fields are somewhat mathematical constructions. In fact, you can't actually measure an electric or magnetic field; you can only measure it's influence (the force it produces). I have always been taught that sources create electromagnetic fields. That is, distributions of charged particles create electric field, and current distributions create magnetic fields (these are static fields). In electrodynamics, electric and magnetic fields exist simultaneously. So much so, that they depend on one another. This all comes from Maxwell's equations. Maybe modern interpretation says that the electric field is more fundamental than charges, but I have never heard this before, and it is definitely not what they teach in university. This may be some more advanced and therefore subdued theoretical stuff.
   
   I can't actually DEFINE a GENERAL electromagnetic field in a common definition. I can only tell you that there are a set of partial differential equations that define how EM fields behave (Maxwell's equations, Lorentz force law), and solutions to these equations are electromagnetic fields.
   
   
2. Do not think of electric fields in this matter. It isn't incorrect to say that there is a universal electromagnetic field, but it is not very insightful. It's better to think that charged objects create these fields, which affect other charged objects.
   
   
3. Generally speaking, if there was no charge in the universe, there would be no electromagnetic fields. Again, you are confused with electromagnetic theory terminology. I recommend picking up a copy of Griffiths book on electrodynamics if you are interested in the subject matter.
   
   
4. Yes. Classically, mass creates gravitational fields, while charges create electromagnetic fields. If two charges are placed near each other, they will experience an electromagnetic force, with it's strength and direction determined by the particle's position (as a function of time) and charge. Masses are similar, except the force is the force of gravity.
   
   Also, light does not propagate THROUGH electromagnetic fields. Light IS propagating electromagnetic fields. Light is known more generally as electromagnetic radiation, and it is simply energy that propagates in a wavelike fashion out to infinity, generated from the motion of charged particles.

Read read read and experiment!

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336 is one of my favorite books that explains in great detail the workings of components, without getting overly mathematical. (Math is critical in understanding the behavior, however.)

Then get a basic scope/dmm (or get access to a lab) and build circuits to exercise your knowledge. It won’t work on the first couple tries, but google is your friend, and thats when the learning really materializes — when you understand why something didn’t work, and when you understand how to fix it.

Youtube is a great reference too. Here are some channels I’m subscribed to. Good luck!
https://www.youtube.com/user/w2aew
https://www.youtube.com/user/engineerguyvideo
https://www.youtube.com/user/LearnEngineeringTeam
https://www.youtube.com/user/sutty6
https://www.youtube.com/user/msadaghd
https://www.youtube.com/user/EEVblog

Buy yourself of copy of the art of electronics. Pick one or two topics from that book every day and read about them. It covers pretty much every aspect of EE without going into an insane amount of detail. Use that to narrow your focus once you find something that really interests you. EE is a huge area of engineering and you’re not gonna like all aspects of it but the art of electronics is a great start.

The Art of Electronics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521809266/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_FeY5BbNKDNXSF

Edit: to add on to this. Adafruit has a ton of more entry level friendly tutorials and stuff. Find a component on their store and they’ll have tons of projects and tutorials using those components. They don’t get much in to how it all works. You’re going to have to read for that. Kahn academy is pretty good at explaining stuff too.

There's definitely something to be said about being self-employed. If you can pull it off, being your own boss is probably pretty liberating. I was actually having a conversation with my roommate last night about work and money, etc. He graduated college a few months back with a 4-year degree and now he's making $30k/year at a job he already hates after working there for a month. It does suck to feel like a pawn of the system - you work for pennies while other people profit immensely off of your productivity. So going freelance might ameliorate that problem for you.

In regards to printing PCBs, yeah, that's electrical engineering. There's a book my EE friend made me buy that you might find useful for that endeavor: Practical Electronics for Inventors. Though that link to American Amazon might not be the best based on your usage of the word "flat." I've been working my way through a different one - Essentials of Computing Systems, which I've found pretty cool. Starting with NAND gates (in a hardware simulator) it has you build up a fully functional computer, which you then write software for. Pretty cool stuff. For context I'm a 23 year old chemical engineering graduate who's 2 years into a 7 year MD/PhD program. So lots of tests left to take and reports to write for me at least.

maybe check out this book and see if you can do a little better with it. it still has math, but you can't really get around all of it: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0071771336


you at least have to be able to do some ohms law and some basic calculations. A lot of other things have seemingly impenetrable calculus behind them but I've found a lot of the time you can just read a data sheet and they'll give you some simple formulas that you can just plug into that work well enough. You don't need to know how they came up with the formulas, just plug in your parameters and go.


You should go on youtube and watch some videos of people repairing amps. there's lots of good ones and you can pick up a lot of stuff through osmosis. also check out EEVblog.


lastly, instead of messing with your nice guitar amp, build a cheap one yourself and mess with it. there's tons of schematics online you can use and it's pretty fun to build one. I put this one together and I really like it: http://www.runoffgroove.com/ruby.html You can buy all the parts from digikey.com

Electronics is both easy and hard. The easy parts are following a schematic and plugging existing circuits together. This is usually much easier with digital electronics since all the electronics are doing are turning the current on and off or bringing the voltage high or low. The hardest part is making sure you connect all the wires correctly, and most devices are protected, and voltages are low, so crossing wires won't fry the device (though LEDs are easy to burn out). You can get very far with this "lego" mindset to circuit design. If you want to understand how current flows through an electrical network, and why resistors need specific values, how analog circuits work, and why digital signals need certain components like capacitors, then you'll need to invest more time in understanding electrical theory. This book is really good for that: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336

You have to "bootstrap" somewhere. At the VERY bottom is generally NOT a productive or practical way to do it. We used to have a joke in EE school: "If want a good laugh, ask a physicist to design a circuit for you". The reason it's funny is they'll start designing from quantum mechanics or Maxwell's equation as they usually don't ever learn all the tricks we have in EE to "short-circuit" the process.

Basically start with analog circuits (Ohm's law) for DC, advance to AC and then to circuits and systems. You can go deeper but at the start frankly most people will get wrapped around the axle and give up first.

Everything from Grand Unification up to your iPhone is built on approximate models with assumptions that are not strictly correct all of the time if ever. In electronics you have circuits bounded by Quantum Mechanics and Maxwell's Equations as "actual physics". You can't actually use these for 99% of anything practical so these are not the best starting points.

Instead you use approximate models like Lumped Equivalent Model (which is what resistors, capacitors and inductors are: that resistor in your hand - it's not real - just an approximation). But you don't really want to learn that up front.

However if you want a reference that goes into the physics of electronics I'd recommend The Physics of Information Technology. Not cheap so borrow it from a library first.

But ONLY use it when you get that itch to naively dig into the physics for a quick dip or overview or orientation. Otherwise use regular electrical engineering (EE) intro analog circuit textbooks or something like Horowitz' Art of Electronics

Unless you have a physics or engineering degree TPIT will still go straight over your head mostly (the author is an MIT professor and he relatively gentle by BSEE/BS Physics standards on the math but it's brutal if you haven't had several years of university math).

The Synopsys book club has a list of EE/CS books that are either the clear standouts in their topic area or at the very least a good presentation of the material.

Two less theoretical books you might also be interested in, depending on what you are looking for:

The Circuit Designer's Companion by Tim Williams is a good overview of the practical aspects of turning a schematic into a working circuit. Grounding, how to choose the right type of cap/resistor/inductor, EMC, etc.

Practical Electronics for Inventors by Paul Scherz is similar to the Art of Electronics but is written at a more introductory level. It includes a lot of the important small details that either aren't covered in EE coursework or tend to get muddled in the slog through theory and are therefore easy to forget.

Best way to get back into EE stuff is to build some projects! Hackaday and EEVBlog are your friends, as are Sparkfun, Futurlec, and Digikey.

I would highly recommend Art of Electronics. I've read dozens of books on this category and it is by far my favorite; useful both for initial instruction as well as later reference. Yes, it is expensive, but IMHO is well worth it.

The other book I'd recommend is "Practical Electronics for Inventors" by Scherz and Monk. Best breakdown of capacitor types and applications that I've seen. Link here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0071771336

It's best to learn by doing, but sometimes those kits don't cut it. Like others, I recommend toying with a breadboard, but I also think getting your hands on these books will also help. They're beginner's books, are easy to follow, and have some interesting circuits to play around with. Additionally, there is a tiny bit of theory in it. If you want to go hardcore into the theory without having to do much math, go for the electronics bible, Horowitz and Hill.

Sweet. I think the best curriculum to approach this with, assuming you're in this for the long haul, would be to start with building a good understanding of calculus, cover basic classical mechanics, then cover electricity and magnetism, and finally quantum mechanics. I'm going to leave math and mechanics mostly for someone else, because no textbooks come to mind at the moment. I'll leave you with three books though:

For Math, unless someone else comes up with something better, the bible is Stewart's Calculus

The other two are by the same author:

Griffith's Introduction to Electrodynamics

Griffith's Introduction to Quantum Mechanics

I think these are entirely reasonable to read cover to cover, work through problems in, and come out with somewhere near an undergraduate level understanding. Be careful not to rush things. One of the biggest barriers I've run into trying to learn physics independently is to try and approach subjects I don't have the background for yet: it can be a massive waste of time. If you really want to learn physics in its true mathematical form, read the books chapter by chapter, make sure you understand things before moving on, and do problems from the books. I'd recommend buying a copy of the solutions manuals for these books as well. It can also be helpful to look up the website for various courses from any university and reference their problem sets/solutions.

Good luck!

EE yes. If you can EE than you can program. Taking a few CS courses will teach you the finer points of programming. But if you want to play with hardware than EE is the way to go.

Between EE and CS, both types learn programming. Focus on EE if you are thrilled by hardware. Focus on CS if you love logic puzzles and high level abstractions. FYI EE pays more and you can always get a programming job with an EE. The reverse is not true.

(Although I have to say that most EE's I know are terrible programmers. But that doesn't seem to stop them.)

I think a book that would be perfect for you is
The Art of Electronics
. The first half is all basic electronics. Then it gets into logic circuits and finally simple computer circuits.

One nice thing about this book is that the chapters are very well organized. So if you don't want to learn everything there is to know about transistors, just read the first few pages of the transistor chapter and the move on.

https://learn.sparkfun.com

https://learn.adafruit.com

This is not Arduino specific though there is a chapter on it but it's a very good how to reference book: Practical Electronics for Inventors, Fourth Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/

It's sort of like getting a $20 textbook except with less theory and more about how to do various things, what parts to use, etc.

There's also a free textbook here that is pretty good:

• http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/
  
• http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/digital/

assuming you have all the fundamental physic, you can start with the textbook from allaboutcircuits's textbook. A introduction to electronic book. It is about 2000 pages covering all basics of electronics. I think it is a great read and easy to understand, written for beginners.


After that you should read Make:AVR programming. It is quite enjoyable read and I read it in 2 sitting. A computer engineering book specifically targeting microcontroller. And as the name imply, it is about 8 bit AVR which is easily the most popular arduino variant. It covers a lot of detail on microcontroller basics and underlying electronic concept and working principles.

To supplement the above book, read a atmel datasheet on one of their microcontroller (atmega328 is a good choice).


For optional knowledge you can try Make's Encyclopedia Of Electronic Components It basically covers all electronic components and introduce you to it. I didn't like too much because you cant read it as a book but should use it as a reference to a particular component you are interested it. It is a great way to broaden your scope on what components is available to you.


Then for the advanced stuff you can read the The Art of Electronics By many it is consider the holy grail of electronic textbook. But I think it is difficult to read without an formal EE education.

This looks like a good book

http://www.amazon.com/MAKE-Electronics-Learning-Through-Discovery/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769926&sr=8-3

This IS a good book but deals with advanced theories.


http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769926&sr=8-16


And this looks pretty good.

http://www.amazon.com/Circuitbuilding-Yourself-Dummies-Ward-Silver/dp/0470173424/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769941&sr=8-21


Go to the book store, pick up some books. Go the the library and see what they have. Pick up old radios and junk off of the street take them home and pull them apart but be careful of the capacitors, if you dont know what a capacitor is then read one of the above books.

Look on craigslist for free electronics and start taking them apart. Be careful of anything that uses Alternating current, anything that plugs into a wall deals with large voltages so be sure to start small.

Personally, I think the best place for a lay-person to start getting a technical grasp of electronics is from the "Navy Electricity and
Electronics Training Series" (NEETS) modules. The modules don't always describe the electrical behavior in a rigorous physics/engineering based way, but instead, they provide more practical explanations and applications. The best part is that they are freely available here.

As a next step, the standard go-to book is The Art of Electronics, which while it is a little pricey, covers a greater breadth of topics at a greater depth.

edit: typo.

1st year super keen physics student here. I'm particularly passionate about plasma physics and I'm doing a research project this semester as well as an extension to my physics course in that field. I've already ordered a copy of Chen's 3rd edition, and have a hard copy of Fusion Physics as well as a library copy of Griffith's Electromagnetism (only 2nd edition though; worth getting the new one?)

Anyone have suggestions for texts/resources for physics along the same lines?

Cheers!

I am a current EE student right now and saw you ask in another comment about book recommendations so I thought I would throw a few in:

• a frequently recommended electronics book is :Art of Electronics
  
• A frequently used (us included) electronics book is Microelectronic Circuits
  
  
• For introductory circuits we use (and i enjoy) : Fundamentals of electric circuits
  
  
• I am hoping to get through : Signal Processing and Linear Systems
  
  
• instead of the above the smartest professor I know recommends anything by : Oppenheim
  
  
• a couple good books for brushing up/learning engineering mathematics: Engineering Mathmatics and Advanced Engineering Mathmatics
  
  
  You should probably throw in some electromagnetic and semiconductor physics for good measure as well.

First do the hand calculations for the patch antenna size, they can be found in many textbooks.

Next, simulate the antenna and see how close it matches your hand calculations.

I can recommend:

Microstrip Antenna Design Handbook by Bahl, Bhartia et al.

Good antenna theory textbooks are:

Antenna Theory and Design by Stutzman and Thiele

Antenna Theory: Analysis and Design by Balanis

Older editions can be found on AbeBooks and are just fine.

Antenna-Theory.com is a good online antenna reference.

Try posting in /r/rfelectronics for help later.

Yuuuuup, feeling the same way except i think i'd like to get more into the microcontroller/FPGA field of EE.

I ended up getting this book a while ago and it's actually been quite helpful in explaining things in a manageable and very equation-lite way. Definitely gonna need another source for more in-depth but for the basics it's quite good.
Something like this would also be good to have for reference.

I've heard good things about Knight, that /u/RobusEtCeleritas recommended. I've used Serway and Jewett for my intro classes and it was pretty good.

If you're looking for more of an advanced treatment while still remaining accessible, you can check out the Berkeley Physics Course series of texts. I can only only comment directly on the second text by Purcell which is very good; and from what I've heard the others are also good reads. They are difficult to get a hold of (though that may have changed) so you may want to check your schools' library first.

Here is a link to a pretty thorough course in beginning analog circuits. I don't know how much you would get out of it seeing as you would probably know most of it from being a physicist, but it's there for reference. The next step up would be this book by Sedra and Smith. It will start off with Thevenin and Norton equivalents and work up from there. The book is very large and contains damn near everything you need to know about analog circuits (even has a chapter on semi-conductor physics :)). If you have any interest in digital circuit logic you can go here. Also, I think I see an Arduino in the article picture. There is plenty of documentation on their website. If you want to know more about microprocessors in general, Amazon has a long list of books that could probably suit your needs. Hope that helps! :)

Have you tried Electronics for Dummies?

No I'm not joking, you you with the pretentious comment about it being to basic, hop on your bike.

Seriously you seem like someone who doesn't need a 1000 page plus text book with chapters only relevant on certain applications right now, you can find Electronics for Dummies on Amazon second hand for almost nothing, its written with the plan to make you understand how a circuit works and form the very basic overview of schematics and electronic theory. At only 350 ish pages long and in rather large print you'll fly though it and give you a good notion of the basics and a clue about more advanced stuff.

Whats that, you wanted something dripping with physics and complicated maths? Hows about Microelectronics by Jacob Millman and Arvin Grabel, it has a good portion of its content for Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Electrical Engineers and looooooooooooooooooooooootttttttttts of math, it covers everything from how logic circuits work to the nitty gritty of circuit design. expect diagrams and plot charts with schematics and a brief explination of the circuits depicted as well as the math that shows how it all works. http://books.google.ie/books/about/Microelectronics.html?id=-yFTAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y

Why am I suggesting these books? Well these are on my desk. One of them has taught me a fair bit and the other has confused the snot out of me, guess which one did what.

I would say the Art of Electronics is great for people who don't have an exceptional math base. So in that sense yes it is good.

I've always found however that the Art of Electronics is not as great as a book to read from front to back. To me it is better as a reference text.

To know what else to recommend I would need to know what exactly your skill level is. The first book where I truly began to learn electronics in university was Sedra and Smith's Microelectronic Circuits. For the most part the math is not too difficult, however it is still university level so it helps to know at least basic calculus. I think you could probably get by without calculus however for at least the early chapters (first half or so) which comprises a first course in electronics.

Now that the 3rd edition has been published, used copies of the 2nd edition of The Art of Electronics is super cheap. I think this is the best intro circuits book for self study. Alternatively, I've really enjoyed Practical Electronics for Inventors too, and it covers more modern stuff (like it has a chapter on arduino). Both of these start with the basics, though Practical Electronics written for a more general audience so it is easier on the math.

For electromagnetics, I've heard Electricity and Magnetism is pretty good. It does cover some circuits stuff, but so much of circuits is about electronic components that you really need a dedicated circuits book to understand them.

I am using Conquering the Physics GRE as an overview, but I really enjoy anything from David Morin and David J. Griffiths for the level of questions and explanations (and in-book/online solutions manuals that go a long way towards showing you how to think like a physicist). But my "library" for preparing for the physics GRE is:

CM: Morin, Problems and Solutions in Introductory Mechanics and Introduction to Classical Mechanics

Gregory, Classical Mechanics for extra explanations and problems

EM: Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics 3e

QM: Griffiths, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics 3e

Thermo/Stat.Mech: Schroeder, An Introduction to Thermal Physics

Kittel and Kroemer, Thermal Physics

Waves: Morin, on his website are ten chapters to what appears to be a Waves book in the making

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~djmorin/waves/

Atomic, Lab Methods: Conquering the Physics GRE and any online resources I can find.

​

If you email Case Western, they send a link to some amazing flash cards!

Luckily it's never been easier to start learning electronics. I know you want hands-on experience but you gotta learn some theory first - I'd recommend a book like Practical Electronics for Inventors to learn the basics (some people swear by The Art of Electronics but it is not a beginners book, rather more of a intermediate-advanced reference). Then something like the Arduino Starter Pack that will start you on the path to building circuits!

Along the way, watching electronics tutorials and teardowns on youtube, and taking apart stuff to see how it works would also really help.

I had the same approach as you when I first started learning electronics; I'd recommend Practical Electronics for Inventors. While it does explain just about every topic in great detail, it does so at a pace that's neither too slow nor too fast; you can easily skip the more technical chapters, and stick to the easy bits too.
However, if you want to do more than create simple signal clipping distortion pedals, I would suggest that you read the technical stuff as well, to learn what actually goes on in a circuit, and to understand how you might modulate your guitar's sound.

I think it is dependent on the field. For several areas in experimental astronomy you deal with extremely large datasets. Advanced statistical methods and 'machine learning' can be very valuable tools. Whereas for someone studying solid state experiment this would be a waste of time. Better time would be spent on learning the physical hardware and electronics and noise (I think, never done solid state myself). Although you would be surprised, I knew someone who was using neural networks for a project involving solid state and transitions.

As a whole, compared with theorists, you may want to develop a better understanding of statistics, computing/programming, electronics, hardware, and several fields I'm not thinking of. However which of those are most applicable depends on the work you are doing. Although a solid foundation in statistics is most likely useful for all scientists.

To add a text, The Art of Electronics is practically an experimental bible for many people.

I don't know about layman, but Griffiths Electrodynamics is a standard first text in university.

A good bit to have a layman's understand of is the following. These two Maxwell's equations:

>divergence E = non-zero (in general)

>divergence B = 0 (always)

(not sure how much of a layman you are, but divergence = triangle then a dot, see the first and second equations down in the table here, doesn't really matter what divergence actually means for this).

The first of these is a statement of the fact that there are electric monopoles (E=electric field), i.e. a positive or negative charge sitting all on its own. The second says that there are no magnetic monopoles (B=magnetic field). Which is to say that you can't have the north pole of a magnet without having a south pole next to it. This is a subject of some discussion, but no-one has detected one yet.

Another good thing about Maxwell's equations is that they were written down before Einstein discovered Special Relativity, but they are already correct in special relativistic terms. They tell us that we'd been studying and quantifying relativistic effects long before Einstein's work, we just didn't call these effects relativity, nor realise that the same sorts of laws govern the motion of massive objects rather than just electric and magnetic fields.

> With all of that said, I feel as though I am seriously lacking in more complex electronic knowledge: solenoids/inductors, capacitors, relays

No offense, that's still the basic stuff. An EE degree would have covered all of that stuff in the 1st year.

You're still in the beginner stages if you are unable to analyze basic inductor, capacitor, and resistor circuits. You may have the math-chops for the differential-equations and get a jump-start into filter design (year 2)... but you're not yet ready to even tackle transistors or designing with op-amps yet (year 2 or 3ish).

Still, its good that you've got Op-Amp experience. That's real good, but without understanding capacitor circuits... it really makes me wonder. Ex: There are a lot of capacitors in a lot of Op-Amp use-cases. Integrator, differentiator, as well as very important filter designs.

> So what are some good resources I can use to supplement the knowledge that I already have without having to dig out small pieces of knowledge from beginners guides?

You're in an awkward position. You're an advanced beginner that is missing some fundamental knowledge due to the ad-hoc nature of studying a bit of this or that.

Fortunately, there's really no reason you couldn't just march forward in whatever interests you anyway. Go to your university's library, check out Sedra / Smith and just have at it. The basics are covered in Chapter 1 and the Appendix.

You'll of course run into issues due to your gap in knowledge, but whatever. Just pickup a beginner book and scan through the formulas you don't know as you come across those gaps. There's no reason you can't just jump into the interesting stuff when you're doing self-study.

------------

I highly suggest you start with:

• Sedra / Smith Appendix C: http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780199339136/student/app/app_c
  
  
• Sedra / Smith Appendix D: http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780199339136/student/app/app_d
  
  
• Sedra / Smith Appendix E: http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780199339136/student/app/app_e
  
  
• Sedra / Smith Appendix F: http://global.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780199339136/student/app/app_f
  
  
• Sedra / Smith Chapters 1 through 3. (Which covers basics of Diodes, Op-Amps, and Electronics)
  
  It'd be advanced, but it would be far more interesting than covering the basics from a beginner book. The "practicality" of 3rd year material of EE stuff is obvious. Playing with resistors and capacitors... while important fundamentally... is kind of arcane. Its difficult to see the applicability of an LRC circuit, but amplifiers are just... grossly obvious in their applicability.
  
  Appendix C, D, E and F are a summary of everything you'd learn from year 1 of an EE Degree. They are missing phasors and other stuff... but you'll find that these ~30 pages or so cover a huge amount of ground. They would provide you a decent starting-point to read the rest of the Sedra / Smith book.
  
  You'll probably need to go back to a "beginner book" to learn about AC circuits and phasors. But you probably can totally just tackle Sedra / Smith right now if you wanted.

I'm sure we'd all be willing to help, but you need to ask better questions. I work in the telecommunications industry for a company that develops carrier networking products, and yet I've little idea what you're really wanting. So for now, I'll answer the question that you have asked, though I doubt you'll like the answer.

>So what I would like is some books that explain what parameters affect the energy consumption at the telecommunications infrastructure.

The parameters that effect energy consumption are resistance, capacitance, and inductance. As far as books on the subject? I don't know. Maybe The Art of Electronics?

Think of it like a mountain lake and a river. Volts are like the lake. It is a bunch of stored water that potentially could do work. Once the dam is released the water can flow, like a river. Current, or amps, is like the river.


A battery has a certain voltage that you can measure. Once you put it into a circuit, or attach a load, that will pull a certain amount of current which you can measure.

Resistance is all the rocks and stuff that limit the flow of current, or the speed of the water flowing in the river.


Watch youtube videos, and read The art of electronics


Another good thing to remember is volts are pushed and amps are pulled.

These aren't websites, but The Art of Electronics and its companion Learning the Art of Electronics are often referred to as learning resources, for good reason.

​

There are of course web sites that teach you electronics, but not on the level these two books, imho. If you don't want to buy books, then I'd recommend you to go watch bigclivedotcom and EEVblog, they have some great content. There are lots of other YT channels with similar content.

Best online resource: All about circuits

Best Book: Art of Electronics

Best starting projects: Working with the basic stamp (though any other microcontroller kit would work just as well)

Both books include a fair amount of information transistor/structural level. LaMeres' is didactically one of the best books available on the topic and well suited for non-EE students. If you really want to beat the software engineers with a big electronics book, then I would rather recommend Practical Electronics for Inventors by Scherz and Monk instead which has good didactic quality and even covers digital electronics, programmable circuits and Verilog in sufficient detail.

Good idea. I did an "electronics for scientists" class from the physics department when I was an undergrad. Can't remember what book we used, I think it was by a guy at Duke University maybe. It was a good starting point, covering LRC circuits, transistors, and opamps.

Edit: It's this book: https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Electronics-Lloyd-R-Fortney/dp/0195178637/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469462772&sr=8-1&keywords=Fortney+electronics

Horowitz and Hill is a really good reference. I have another book on my reference shelf, I think it's this one: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469455654&sr=8-1&keywords=electronics+for+inventors

Here is a great website with some circuits that are common building blocks of instrumentation:

http://www.ecircuitcenter.com/

(see "Circuit Collection" link).

Finally, Linear Technologies has a free version of Spice called LTSpice that you can use for circuit simulation on Windows (hope I'm not violating any rules on commercial stuff; I just happen to use it and like it). If you use Linux, there is a package called gEDA that has a schematic entry tool and a version of Spice. I haven't used the Spice tool yet from that package, but it's probably good.

An op amp is a differential amplifier with an enormous gain, something along the lines of 10^(6)

This causes some interesting things, for instance, with input voltages above, say 1/1000 of a volt, it will act as a comparator, the largest voltage immediately sending the input high or low.

Because of this high gain, it is easy to construct a circuit for an amplifier that is determined by the ratio of two resistors alone, the gain disappearing entirely from the equations.

Op amps can also be used to add DC bias to a signal.

​

These are some useful resources

How to bias an Op Amp (MIT)

The Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz (worth every penny)

Khan Academy's course on the subject

Best two:

• Practical Electronics for Inventors - a new version is supposed to be coming out in 2015 to correct the bugs in this book, there quite a few errors in the book, but its still a great read
  
  
• The Art of Electronics - an old college text book, out of print and hard to find, but a classic. I always considered this book to be a sort of the electronics version of "Joy of Cooking". You can find used copies sometimes at a decent price on Ebay. The new 3rd edition is coming out in April 2015, but its going to be a >$100 hardback textbook and its kinda pricey.
  

Practical Electronics for Inventors is an amazing book which covers the basics of essentially every aspect of electronics a beginner would need to know. Seems to have had a problem with poor editing but it's cheap (under $30) and still far better than anything else out there.

The Art of Electronics is twenty years old and is still pretty much the standard reference for practical electrical engineering topics. Some sections show their age but still incredibly useful. A new edition is supposed to be coming out eventually.

Someone posted a great BLDC paper a week ago I'm still using. http://www.amazon.com/Circuit-Designers-Companion-Edition-Engineers/dp/0750663707 is indispensable. Xilinx, Atmel, and LT parts manuals and app-notes. I use Switching power supply design by Pressman, but your pdf looks better. Also http://www.hottconsultants.com/techtips/decoupling.html , http://www.analog.com/static/imported-files/seminars_webcasts/High%20Speed%20System%20Applications%20%28PDF%29/HS%20Systems%20Part%204%20for%20Print_A.pdf, though I haven't used that in years (moved away from hs stuff lately).

Schaums when I fall over, and The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design when things get heavyish. When it comes to wireless stuff it's mostly stuff like wikipedia so I can remember how to do the encoding systems, too many for me to remember more than QAM and PSK offhand easily, the rest just exist in my brain as "other".

The Horowitz/Hill bible is great, he's a physicist/EE. For some people, though, his interest in the physics isn't necessarily what they geek out on, and so for those people I'd suggest also Practical Electronics for Inventors.

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336

I found this book to be very easy for beginners to pick up and enjoy, and get started on building far more quickly.

You have to learn the concepts of digital signal processing. There are alot of really good books out there on amazon. You can choose to implement these algorithms in many ways, in C++ using various audio libraries, in CUDA/OCL on a GPU or even in hardware level via Verilog/VHDL on an FPGA.

If you want to deal with raw circuitry, you need to learn analog signal processing, you might have to learn the concept of analog electronics. BJT's/OpAmplifiers/ClassA/AB/D etc. I recommend this book, it is fantastic.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195323033/

I recommend reading up the concepts of DSP first. Discrete Fourier Transforms, frequency manipulation such as low/high/band pass filtering. All the various concepts basically. This coursera site shows most important concepts.
https://www.coursera.org/course/dsp

Also, unless you are working on an FPGA, there is not much point testing/starting out on an embedded system. Try it out on your PC/Mac first

I bought the official kit a few months ago and I finished all the projects.

• The kit contains a lot more components than you need to complete the projects. Lots of resistors, capacitors, temperature sensors and LEDs.
  
  
• The book doesn't explain much of the science. If you want to know more about the science I recommend this book.
  
  Its an good kit. It got me started but I really wanted more in depth explanations.
  
  Another great resource is Sparkfun. They sell kits which are very well documented and provide lots of other information

Assuming you’re a beginner, and are starting with little to no knowledge:

I bought the 3rd edition of the book called “Practical Electronics for Inventors” by Scherz and Monk it starts from the basics and you slowly build more and more complex and practical circuits.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_eTs2BbXN9S1DN

Another fun on by Monk is “The Maker's Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse: Defend Your Base with Simple Circuits, Arduino, and Raspberry Pi”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1593276672/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XVs2BbYMVJT5N

If you are looking for something more theory based (I wouldn’t recommend initially unless you’re just curious) there’s a whole slew of texts books depending on what exactly you’re interested in you can pick up for cheap at a used book store or on amazon.

Remember build slowly in the beginning until you get a good grasp on the content and have fun. Diving in too deep to quickly can overwhelm and kill morale.

Happy learning!

I don't know about Jackson's book. I read Griffiths and he was great. I would strongly recommend Griffiths for clarity and reading comprehension. He would generally tell you outright what stuff was important and what wasn't.

Here is his book

That is advanced physics for you. If it were easy, there would be as many people in physics lectures as something like business administration. Most topics won't stick the first, second, or even third time around.

As for electromagnetics, I could recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-4th-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562

Feel free to get an older addition.

I'm in the same boat. Most of the Arduino tutorials I see are aimed at hardware people. They tediously explain what an if () statement is but assume you know how to hook up a MOSFET.

I bought this book. I've not read it yet, but from what I've skimmed of it so far it seems pretty great -- just what I need. After that I think it's all about practical experience. Be ready to waste some money either damaging parts or buying the wrong parts. Luckily it's all pretty cheap.

What kind of robot do you want to make?

As an electronics engingeer, purchase a copy of "The art of electronics"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0521370957/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1321710457&sr=8-1

This book, although expensive, covers almost everything you would learn pursuing a degree in electrical or electronics engineering. Its a great bench reference book when you need it.

The trick is find an area of electronics that interest you. The Arduino is a great place to start.

I favor books over websites and youtube videos for most technical learning projects like this.

Practical Electronics for Inventors has been in one of my amazon wishlists for a while now, saved for when I decide to start tinkering more myself. It looks pretty decent and isn't uber expensive.

It's difficult to tell without seeing it, but "Learning the Art of Electronics" looks like a book to accompany "The Art of Electronics". If you're a beginner, The Art of Electronics might be a bit overwhelming. My recommendation as an absolute starting point is Getting Started in Electronics by Forest M. Mimms. It's old and used to be sold at Tandy, but it gives a really quick and simply overview of the basics, and you can get the 3rd edition here for free:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5jcnBPSPWQyaTU1OW5NbVJQNW8/edit

If you're still interested after reading Getting Started, it's probably appropriate to move on to either The Art of Electronics http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0H11CKC3J5KJMF8BHHA8

or the much cheaper Practical Electronics for Inventors (as mentioned elsewhere - 4th edition is out in April)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452851192&sr=1-1&keywords=practical+electronics+for+inventors

The guys over at www.circuitlab.com are building a really awesome, free, in-browser schematic drawing tool and simulator.

Practical Electronics for Inventors is also a good mix of theory and telling you what you need to know to make things blink.

White noise posting here.

Obviously not everything in there...but both do a really good job at pointing out not only typical circuits + intuition, but also on what common configurations of passives do and what they are used for. Sometimes you can look at some circuit and there are three or four resistors/caps/inductors that don't seem to do anything but touch the ground rail...figuring out what those do is very handy as well, and those links to a good job at helping you sort that out.

I thought of some books suggestions. If you're going all in, go to the library and find a book on vector calculus. You're going to need it if you don't already know spherical coordinates, divergence, gradient, and curl. Try this one if your library has it. Lots of good books on this though. Just look for vector calculus.

Griffiths has a good intro to E&M. I'm sure you can find an old copy on a bookshelf. Doesn't need to be the new one.

Shankar has a quantum book written for an upper level undergrad. The first chapter does an excellent job explaining the basic math behind quantum mechanics .

-----
-----

BOOKS

Children Electronics and Electricity books:

• "Electricity for Young Makers" by de Vinck.
  
  
• "Make: Easy Electronics" by Platt. (12 experiments)
  
  
• "Electronics for Kids: Play with Simple Circuits and Experiment with Electricity!" by Dahl.
  
  
• "Electronics For Kids For Dummies" by Shamieh. (13 experiments)
  
  Newbie Electronics books:
  
  
• "Make: How to Use a Breadboard" by Ragan and Culkin. (10 experiments)
  
  
• "Make: Electronics" by Platt. (34 experiments)
  
  
• "Make: More Electronics" by Platt. (36 experiments)
  
  
• "Lessons in Electric Circuits - Volume VI - Experiments" by Kuphaldt. (free book)
  
  
• Series "Engineer's Mini-Notebook" booklets by Forrest Mims. (download archives)
  
  
• List of books about 555-series Timer ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Basic Circuit Theory books:
  
  
• "Electrical Circuit Theory and Technology" by Bird. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Introductory Circuit Analysis" by Boylestad. (download old edition)
  
  
• Series "Lessons In Electric Circuits" by Kuphaldt. (free books)
  
  
• List of books about Diodes, Transistors on Wikipedia.
  
  Analog Design books:
  
  
• "Microelectronic Circuits" by Sedra and Smith. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Electronic Devices and Circuit Theory" by Boylestad and Nashelsky. (download old edition)
  
  
• List of books about Operational Amplifier (OpAmp) ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about LM-series Analog Linear ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Digital Design books:
  
  
• "Digital Fundamentals" by Floyd. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design: Principles and Practices" by Wakerly. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design: with Introduction to Verilog, VHDL, SystemVerilog" by Mano and Ciletti. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design and Computer Architecture" by Harris and Harris.
  (download old edition)
  
  
• List of books about 7400-series TTL Digital Logic ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about 4000-series CMOS Digital Logic ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Digital Signal Processing books:
  
  
• "Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing" by Smith. (download or online)
  
  Computer Design books:
  
  
• List of books about
  6502,
  6800,
  6809,
  8080,
  8085,
  Z80,
  68000,
  x86
  processors on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about
  8051,
  ARM,
  AVR,
  PIC,
  RISC-V
  microcontrollers on Wikipedia.
  
  Electronics Reference books:
  
  
• "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill. (download example chapter)
  
  
• "The Art of Electronics - The X Chapters" by Horowitz and Hill. Shipping in 2020.
  
  
• "ARRL Handbook" by various ARRL authors. (download very old edition)
  
  Historical books:
  
  
• "The Intellectual Rise In Electricity - A History" by Park Benjamin in 1895.
  
  
• "Electricity - It's History and Development" by William Durgin in 1912.
  
  
• "Bibliographical History of Electricity & Magnetism" by Paul Mottelay in 1922.
  
  
• "History of Communications Electronics in the United States Navy" by Linwood Howeth in 1963.
  
  -----
  -----
  
  

  MAGAZINES
  

  
  Current Electronics Magazines: (subscribe now)
  
  

• "Circuit Cellar"
  
  
• "Elektor"
  
  
• "Everyday Practical Electronics"
  
  
• "Nuts & Volts"
  
  Historical Electronics Magazines: (archives)
  
  
• "Electronics Today"
  
  
• "Everyday Electronics"
  
  
• "Popular Electronics"
  
  
• "Practical Electronics"
  
  
• "Radio Electronics"
  
  Historical Computer Magazines: (archives)
  
  
• "Byte" - 2nd group
  
  
• "Dr Dobb's Journal"
  
  
• "Interface Age"
  
  

• "Kilobaud"
  
  -----
  

David Griffiths' textbooks on E&M and quantum mechanics were easily the best textbooks I had as an undergrad. Clear, concise, refreshingly informal, and even a dash of humor.

Okay, I think i may have came across a great source for those who want to learn more about video.

Video Tutorials

Also some books I would suggest for those who are at least somewhat knowledgeable of electronics:

Active Filter Cookbook

CMOS Cookbook

Art of Electronics

​

I would also highly recommend brushing up on your math, if you want to build more advanced electronics. It's not impossible to learn, just take your time.

Maybe try applied math programs. Some of them seem to have astrophysics faculty https://www.princeton.edu/gradschool/about/catalog/fields/applied_mathematics/. You'll probably have an easier time getting in with your background and can take the math GREs. In a physics BS you would at least have the knowledge of these books:

http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X,

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Electrodynamics-4th-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396384599&sr=1-1&keywords=griffiths,

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Quantum-Mechanics-David-Griffiths/dp/0131118927/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396384599&sr=1-2&keywords=griffiths,

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Thermal-Physics-Daniel-Schroeder/dp/0201380277/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396384625&sr=1-1&keywords=schroeder+statistical+physics.

The more you know from those books, the better. Although an applied math program, probably wouldn't expect you to have read all of them. Also try x-posting to /r/askacademia. I'm sure someone there could be more helpful.

What kind of circuits, and how deep do you want to go? I can recommend some books, but this is a very broad and deep field.

The most basic is linear circuits (R, L & C), you need for nearly everything electronics related. If you like physics and math, this book is excellent: http://www.amazon.com/Electricity-Magnetism-Berkeley-Physics-Course/product-reviews/0070049084/ref=cm_cr_pr_link_2?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=2&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending . It is a physics textbook, but highly related to those basic linear components. If you can stomach it, it will also blow your mind.

Not an eBook but this book has the best intro to electronic components I have ever seen. I have been using it to help my wife learn electronics: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Paul-Scherz/dp/0070580782/

What you're looking for is hobbyist electronics more than engineering. I'd suggest checking out a hackerspace like Pumping Station One. They're sort of community workshops that allow you to use their equipment and attend more informal classes/events.

If you'd like some books that are a good starting point I recommend Make Electronics and Practical Electronics for Inventors

As a ECE this book is awesome and only $20. Great practical as well as theoretical info. https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541

No, I don't, it was just the best ASIC textbook from when I was in grad school. It really helped me understand how transistors work. If you want a good book on discrete components I would recommend The art of electronics. It is written more as a practical guide, with part suggestions for op amps and filters. Like it compares and contrasts different discrete components and will give you suggestions for what op amp to use for different applications. 10/10, would buy again.

If you really want to learn electronics I recommend the book "The Art of Electronics" (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521809266/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456842742&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+electronics)

I know it's a bit pricey but it's the most complete book i have read and also very easy to follow. It's magnitudes better than any school litterature I have used.

I still use it as a reference in my work as a electronics engineer.

Hey buddy!

I'm a college senior studying computer engineering (the hardware side of computer science). I'm about to hook you up.

For the circuits and electronic components. This book is so good we used it for two of my classes. Oh and it is relatively cheap. It also explains the physics in a really approachable way.

You are going to need to learn to program in C, This game is free and is a great place to start!!

You are also going to need a good, cheap source of electronic components. Mouser is what I use.

In short here is your checklist!

1. Learn to program in C.
   
2. Read practical electronics
   
3. STUDY MATH (you can't get around it. You need Calculus, Trig, and Differential equations. Wave related subjects are especailly important. For computers throw in algorithms.) If all that seems overwhelming just know you don't need it at first but if you hit a roadblock or don't understand why an equation works you probably just need a more advanced math.

Personally I love Practical Electronics for Inventors. It is massive and covers the basics as well as so many different subdisciplines that you can pursue. Also to my surprise it is only $20.

But more practical advice would be to research your university’s EE course path and read through the course syllabi. Find out what topics are covered in the core/required courses. See what electives you think you’d be interested in. Consider buying 1st edition (cheaper) versions of one or two or more of the textbooks that are used in those courses.

This page explains it fairly well, I think. So do Horowitz and Hill, if by chance you have their book handy.

I have used that basic design on a few different occasions, although my triangle wave generator looked more like this one. I believe I used an LM741 for the integrator (that's the amplifier with the capacitor in its feedback loop) and the two halves of an LM393 for the comparator in the triangle wave generator + the comparator used to make the PWM. Those exact parts aren't critical by any means, and I don't see anything wrong with Paul Hills' circuit (the first link) either except the part count is higher.


Edit: If you can find an MC33030, or if you care to trawl through catalogs looking for a modern (i.e. orderable) substitute, it will do do the PWM generation for you and it even includes the H-bridge to drive a motor (or in your case, coil) up to 1 amp.

I dig it, good work. To help sort out some of the necessary fundamentals, I recommend you pick up a copy of The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill - 3rd edition. This is a staple for anyone that does anything with electronics. A couple of reads through the first handful of chapters and you'll have a good understanding what a bipolar-junction or field-effect transistor is, what a capacitor is, and how a capacitor and frequency relate to one another - and a whole bunch of other stuff too.

Try 'Practical Electronics for Inventors' by 'Paul Scherz'. This book is awesome. It is quite cheap too.
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541

You can also try 'The Art of Electronics'. Its 3rd edition was released a year back I think. It has an informal style, so, I suppose you'll like it.
https://www.amazon.com/d/cka/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/0521809266

This site is also good.
https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/

Johnson's High Speed Digital Design has a few chapters on power planes and multi-layer stackups, as well as being a good overall reference. The Circuit Designer's Companion is another popular book that covers PCB design techniques as well as several other electronics basics.


The best way to learn is to have your designs reviewed by experienced engineers; but if you're asking here I'm guessing you are doing this as a hobbyist. Maybe post your designs on some EE forums for review?


Also knowing 'how' is not as useful as 'why', ECAD tools generally are different enough that the specifics of how to accomplish something are not the same. Which tool do you use? Most have online user groups or forums for specific questions.

Mostly YouTube videos and online articles. One book in particular I do recommend however is "Practical Electronics for Inventors". Tons of great information, but may be a bit too much if you're a complete noob.

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Fourth-Scherz/dp/1259587541

These websites also have lots of great info:

http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/

https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/

"The Art of Electronics" is widely considered the the single most authoritative book for electronics. There is a companion book "The Art of Electronics Student Manual" that may also prove very useful to you. If you don't have any experience building circuits yet check out this video from EEVBlog "How to setup an Electronics Lab for $300". The easiest way to learn is to learn by doing.

If you haven't started playing with electronics yet, get started you will be glad you did. Never stop learning.

You should first decide what you want the thing to do.

Read this:

https://www.amazon.com/Electronics-Dummies-Cathleen-Shamieh/dp/0470286970

Or check youtube for intro to electronics/circuits videos, there are tons. You'll need to be able to read an electrical schematic, since you're going to have to create one.

Then get yourself a microcontroller like a Raspberry Pi.

Then watch some coding tutorials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrUvhzz5bRs

You'll need a multimeter, a soldering iron, wire strippers, crimping tools, basic hand tools. You should also watch some videos on how to properly fabricate wiring harnesses. You'll need a working knowledge of fasteners and materials.

Don't set out to make a robot your first project. Start small, like getting an LED to spell out "Hello World" in morse code or something. Move up to something with one moving part that does only one thing. Up the complexity of your projects as you go.

Get a practical electronics book right off the bat if you are into electronics. Something like this (or perhaps this):
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Scherz/dp/0071771336?ie=UTF8&keywords=electrical%20engineering&qid=1460691202&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

Also note the price-tag. This book is a gem.

University textbooks often don't have the right mindset to them and now that I've finished my degree and out in the workforce I'm realizing this. You want a book that will actually teach you how to build something. The field of EE also loves to apply a whole bunch of meanings to a few terms, for example "electricity" and "grounding", which can very easily confuse and mislead beginners. Practical books tend to address these things a bit better in my opinion. This applies to any field - I'm an Industrial Engineer (power, motors, control, safety) and also own a book of this type on my field - here in Canada we have Techs and Engineers. The Techs tend to learn how to actually do things, and these are the types of books they read.

Regarding textbooks: something I've only discovered recently is buying Eastern Edition textbooks as they're much cheaper and essentially the same thing.

The textbook Introduction to Electrodynamics is a fantastic book. We used it for a couple of our E&M courses. See if you can find a pdf online of it somewhere and have a look through it. The previous edition (3rd) is also fantastic, if you can find it online as a pdf or on the cheap somewhere.

Understanding vector fields very well was key, in my experience.

If you want something cheap and good then I suggest "Principles of Electrodynamics" by Schwartz.

From the back: "Unlike most textbooks on electromagnetic theory, which treat electricity, magnetism, Coulomb's law and Faraday's law as almost independent subjects within the framework of the theory, this well-written text takes a relativistic point of view in which electric and magnetic fields are really different aspects of the same physical quantity."

It actually does. It starts with electrostatics, then teaches relativity, then shows why there must be a magnetic field due to relativistic invariance. It is advanced and clear. It goes into the why AND the how.

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Electrodynamics-Dover-Books-Physics/dp/0486654931

Do you know what textbooks you'll be needing next year? It might be a good idea to get a hold of them early and familiarize yourself with the material.

The go to undergraduate E&M book is Griffith's, Introduction to Electrodynamics. E&M is tough for a lot of people, so it'd be nice to have a leg up by reading through some of this book before the semester starts. Griffith's writing style is really easy to follow and he tries to guide you threw important derivations without skipping around too much. There's a reason this book is so ubiquitous in undergraduate physics.

It's pretty good, but arguably the best is Horowitz and Hill's "The Art of Electronics". Pricey, but you won't find a better, more accessible, comprehensive treatment of both analog and digital electronics.

The transistor acts like a switch, when the GPIO pin goes up (current applied to base), the transistor opens and high current flows between collector and emitter. If you are interested in understanding and learning more, I can recommend you a book (it helped me A LOT): Practical Electronics for Inventors. It explains this and much more in words that most would understand and doesn't go into the math or formulas that explains how it works. You'll learn to use IC, transistor, diodes, to create your own schematics, etc.

Some Sites (Google, this subreddit, and /r/breadboard are your friends!):
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/

http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/HomePage

http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/

I'm a grad student with a focus on embedded systems and I teach electronics to sophomores.

I'm particularly fond of the book Electric Circuits.

These are great too:
https://www.circuitlab.com/

http://www.falstad.com/circuit/

Remember, if this stuff lights your fire and gets you excited don't give up when it gets challenging. Seek help and press on. If it doesn't get you excited then keep it as a hobby and find something that does.

Edit: Accidentally added a new comment instead of reply.

I have had good results with this book.

Practical Electronics for Inventors

If youre asking a question about a resistor and an LED, I bet you will have more complex questions about EE topics as you go forward. The book is good for engineering minds that havent studied EE in my experience. Plus the book is pretty cheap for the amount of knowledge inside.

1. https://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957
   
2. https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/pcb-basics/all
   
3. There are companies that will do all of this for you. If your idea is fundable, you can probably just hire a firm or in-source to an ECE to do this for you, and may be better than the 10k-ish hours you'll need to get decent at this.
   
4. One strategy when pitching to investors is separate "looks like" and "works like" prototypes. You can demonstrate your (physical) vision for the product while still demonstrating that it's actually technically feasible.

For those that want a great physical book, i'm sure many will agree, The Art of Electronics is a must have.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210174245&sr=8-5

if you look hard enough, you can find a pdf

I recommend this book to get started.

Practical Electronics for Inventors, Fourth Edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_9lFwDbXMV8B57

It covers electronic basics and some more advanced components.

PCBs aren't too bad for hobbyist work; kicad is free, oshpark is cheap and fast. If you're planning anything at high frequency though, that's kind of a different level.

Be patient with yourself.

The Art of Electronics is an oldie but is very well written and quite entertaining. It goes through just about everything to the 68000 microprocessor (think the first Macintosh and a number of other platforms). For example, transistor man.

There are incompetent physicists, and there are incompetents who call themselves physicists. This response which says "experimental data is not to be debated" is representative of a field not just in crisis but about to experience an extinction event due to the truth of classical physics. If you want to really understand the depth of the problem in modern physics -- the fracture of reality and experiment - lots of math, little reason - read this essay.

Loud public pronouncements that show you don't understand something GUISED as a debate is DAMAGING. These posts are best to be ignored but I have encountered physicists who do google searches and come across people like "CSurveyGuy. " They actually seize his lampoon logic as justification that the hydrino is not worth a look.

There are all levels of people in every field - medical school grads, practiced family doctors, and neurosurgeons - a "doctor" is meaningless as to whether you can be taken seriously. Saying "I'm a physicist" is meaningless. Let's help clarify the prereqs to Mills.

- You need Jackson textbook level E&M to tackle Mills. This is graduate level E&M and many quantum physicists aren't up to speed on it. Since the electron is electromagnetic you need advanced E&M. If you don't have it, go back to school.

- You need strong intuitive capacity. Surprise, surprise, most physicists can't "see" new architectures very well. Brett Holverstott has done a masterful job read hi book for a start. Remember, special relativity was first published in 1905 (interestingly the year the Wright brothers first flew continously and only 10 years early Lord Kelvin physicist of the day said "flight of heavier than air objects is impossible."). Einstein's work was not "seen" nor accepted by ACTUAL elite physicists (not CSurveyGuys heckling in the town square). Proof? In 1931, "100 Authors Against Einstein" is published ( https://archive.org/details/HundertAutorenGegenEinstein ).

- You need to work very hard. Mills flat out has the most powerful intuition we've probably seen for nature in a long time. He "sees" things as obvious that aren't because he imagines nature. He designed the electron architecture - literally imagined reality - and then proved it works - the electron has spin etc. The electron solution is probably the Taj Mahal of science, if you will.

​

Many physicists are plug and chug quantum physicists who use the theory to crank out some marginal results. They don't have any vested in the truth, and may believe we cannot even find the truth about physical reality (it's unknowable to them - the uncertainty principle).

"CSurveyGuy" (and the bucket of similar internet dwellers) may want to actually solve something using this new theory - rather than flailing in public his lack of understanding. Statements like "big, horrible problems, like violating known rules of math" means this person is likely a time-waster. Reddit is not the place to do science.

If anyone is interested in an actual real debate on the theory - read "Reconsidering the validation of multi-electron standard quantitative quantum mechanics" by Dr, Jonathan Phillips (he is on the Navy's Energy Academic Group and his resume speaks for itself). Which is an all out attack on quantum mechanics that it isn't even a valid theory, as it is a jumble of theories none of which validate against experimental data. You can't read the abstract, you have to actually read the details. In that paper, near the end he says that CQM (Classical QM- i.e. Mills theory) DOES appear to be a valid theory since it matches energy levels of electrons and distinguishes them, and matches the experimental data that is the focus of the paper.

Addressing a smattering of other points

- Dr. Randy Booker was chair of UNC's physics department. The UNC chemist there Dr. Rick Maas said the "experimental data is so convincing it is time to stop the bickering about the theory". See the BBC Focus Article "Water Power" from 2005.

- 3 body problems go away because of the architecture of the atomic electrons

- Rathke was fully discredited by Mills who showed Rathke made mathematical errors that nullified all arguments. Since it has been 14 years since this all occurred the case is closed. Rathke was an ant who got crushed by a giant. The almost comedic part of this is that even Nobel laureates - who I have contacted - said they "haven't had time to look into the experimental evidence." A total revolution in science, but "my dog at the homework" type responses.

Since these back and forths won't end. It is best to disengage from internet "physicists" unless they talk about facts, not histrionic claims guised as "debate". I am sure if you took a Family Physician from the 1800s and brought him here today to talk about cloning sheep - he would flatly deny it is possible, and would rail against the theory, and would be an emotional mess because the world has changed. Physics was ripe for disruption - everyone admits that - and now we all play catchup.

Halliday & Resnick would be my recommendation. We used their Physics, Parts 1&2 when I was a student, not their Fundamentals of Physics, which seems to be a different book (and the two books were published simultaneously for a while; I was never sure what the difference was).

If you want individual books, try Kleppner & Kolenkow for mechanics, and Purcell for E&M. Those are often used in honors sections of freshman physics, since the problems tend to be a bit harder. There's also Newtonian Mechanics by A.P. French, which was used for freshman mechanics at MIT for a while (not sure if it still is). French's introductory books on Special Relativity and Quantum Physics are also good. But for relativity my favorite intro-level book is Spacetime Physics by Taylor & Wheeler.

It's easier than you think. Grab this book http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071771336/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 you'll learn a lot.

Anyway, even if you learned some theory you will need to practice and practice, the more you practice the better you become.

There's a lot of tutorials online, you can learn a lot and fast.

I my self am a CS student, I design my own custom board using Cadsoft Eagle, etch it, solder it and so on...

Nothing is hard, you just need to practice. Just search a bit online and start with the easy and small tutorials.

Edit: Grab your self an Arduino Kit or buy a bunch of each component (Jameco, Digikey, Mouser, DX.com, Aliexpress.com, Sparkfun....) and the required tools (soldering iron, plier, breadboards.....)
Also, you can buy some unsoldered boards with their components and read the manual to learn more about circuits and soldering.

Understanding a circuit does require understanding the fundmantal building blocks. For that, there is no better guide than the Art of Electronics. While you might find a guide that says, "this circuit works with a common emitter amplifier," you aren't going to find guides that alway explain those fundamental circuits.

That's where AoE comes in. All of the building blocks are explain in plain simple language. It is worth every penny and I recommend everyone who is interested in circuit design to have a copy. If you can get a good deal on the 2nd edition (e.g. half the price of the 3rd), then go that route. The vast majority of the information is still fine on the older book.

Is [this] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521809266/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_1FnRybW1CCK94) the book you're taking about? It sounds like that is exactly what I was looking for! Thanks a lot ☺️

I highly recommend David Griffith's Introduction to Electrodynamics. It is a classic undergraduate text in electrodynamics. His style is a bit wordy, but I feel it complements all of the mathematics well. It begins with a good overview of vector calculus which is necessary to do college level E&M, so the text is manageable even if you haven't been exposed to calc 3 yet.

Griffiths Electrodynamics would be a good thing to look at. It's surprisingly readable, and it could possibly wind up being your E&M textbook. In my undergrad, E&M was the "weed out" course, where those who weren't up to scratch lost interest in the physics degree, so it's good to get a head start. I wish I had started on it sooner. Maybe I'd have gotten more out of E&M as an undergrad and then Jackson in grad school wouldn't have been so hard.

Here's a good primer to the physics of the neural nets you'll be encountering in the wiring as well; required if you're going to be doing some logic-level debugging (which is pretty much all the time if you want to go beyond the usual Swedish teutonic - which is why you're here, right?)

For electronics I started with this book: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369542421&sr=8-1&keywords=Make%3A+electronics
It has lots of cool experiments to get you started with concepts.

Then there's this: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1369542421&sr=8-10&keywords=Make%3A+electronics
This will go much deeper into theory and give you a strong foundation.

Though if you want to delve right into the programming part: http://www.makershed.com/Getting_Started_with_Arduino_Kit_V3_0_p/msgsa.htm
and
http://www.makershed.com/Raspberry_Pi_Starter_Kit_Includes_Raspberry_Pi_p/msrpik.htm

MicroCenter will have the kits, and RadioShack should have the tinier parts, as well as the Raspberry Pi.

Read The Art of Electronics. It's a pretty great book.

The Art of Electronics is the best all-in-one resource for practical discrete electronics. Add individual device data sheets and plenty of Digikey/Mouser searches with filters and you'll start to get a good feel for general availability of components.

I think it's that E&M is just a more difficult/less interesting subject. If you plan on going to grad school for physics you will almost certainly use this. You'll love Griffiths after dealing with Jackson, as Griffiths acts as a sort of Rosetta stone between English and bizarre Greens Function hieroglyphs.

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/ This might be a good place to get started, I am taking a physics electronics advanced lab as an undergraduate in physics, and I have found this textbook to be pretty useful. Also Hororwitz's the art of electronics is probably the best text on electronics, however very dense (1200 pages). There is definately a lot to learn, and this is just getting you started in the electronics of it... idk specifically about tube amps though, but understand circuits is probably going to be a must

link to buy horowitz: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521809266/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1?pf_rd_p=1944687442&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0521370957&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0PSJGQA7WTQYDCZ7632X

The Art of Electronics - The EE bible
ARRL Handbook - Great for analog and RF circuit knowledge, but tons of general stuff too.
How to Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic - For hands on, real world circuit diagnosis. I've been doing this a long time and I still learned a lot from this book. This book will save you a lot of magic smoke.

I have Michael Wilson for EE112. I found the 9th edition of the textbook online but I'm not sure if it's the same one. Here's the cover.
Thanks for the help

Electrosmash has some great analysis articles on some classic pedals. They get into different components and design choices in exacting detail. If you don't know anything at all about electronics, a lot of stuff will be a mysterious (what's an op amp??) until you read about a specific part (oh, it's a miniature integrated circuit with some transistors that lets you amplify a signal using a fixed gain set by some resistors). But seeing the parts in context will give you an idea what they're doing. A lot of electronics guides focus on on the abstract mathematical relationships between components, which are important but don't give you the "what's this do" information you might be looking for. Practical electronics for inventors is a good book that covers fundamentals with common examples.

Several people recommended more entry-level books in the thread, these may be a good pick if you want results fast. They probably won't give you a full picture, but at least you will be able to put some basic circuits together to see if it's something you want to explore further.

My coworker speaks fondly of Practical Electronics for Inventors, but that's all I have.

For electronics, go with The Art of Electronics. Great reviews, very engaging read.

Interesting. I have more reading to do. But that's good. Hmmm I could have sworn there was a section in this book that talked about ohms law could t be used to both ways or something or other. Oh well.

Old retired guy here......

On my bucket list, I thought I'd take a shot at learning some physics from the bottom up. Here are some observations from someone who tried to learn it without any worries about needing it for a major or trying to get into grad school.

First, elementary physics labs stink. Sometimes you get stuck with a bad lab partner. Other times the equipment is in really bad shape and simply will not work so that the experiment will do what it is supposed to do. If you get a lab assistant who does not know what he/she is doing - and there are quite a few of those - you can forget about a decent lab experience.

Second, intermediate physics labs can be great. I was teamed with an undergraduate I still refer to as Mr. GoldenHands. He could make any piece of lab equipment do what he wanted it to do and what it was supposed to do. I would do calculations and draw graphs while he got the data out with only a little help from me. Furthermore, the lab assistant we had was actually a full professor of physics who was an experienced experimentalist. What my partner did not know about the equipment, he did. Great course.

Physics exams are unnecessarily hard. In a Mathematics exam, students are usually asked about material they have some shot at solving. They will be asked for definitions or statements of theorems that they have seen. They will be asked to answer questions about material they already have seen. In a physics exam, you will get a question completely out of left field that seems to have no relation to anything you have studied previously. No wonder average grades on exams sometimes in the thirties or forties.

Physics professors in undergraduate classes frequently have curricular tunnel vision. "This is the mechanics book. I will go through the book chapter by chapter frequently skipping chapters I do not like. If somebody ask me a question I can not answer such as 'What is the difference between the Lagrangian and Newtonian formulations of mechanics and why is one preferable to the other?' I will brush it off."
(I actually asked this question and got brushed off.) Don't do that!

SLOW DOWN!!!! Physicists seem to be very interested in moving through a course at a breakneck pace that does not allow for any time for internalizing a subject. I'll give an example. Look at Introduction to Electrodynamics by David Griffiths. On page ix of the third edition, Griffith's says that the book can be covered "comfortably in two semesters." A little later, he talks about one semester courses finishing chapter seven. OK. I took a one semester course from that book. The professor skipped chapter one - it was only mathematics, so that was ok by me - and then went like a house-afire and ended the first semester at the end of chapter 10. He did not make any attempt to make the material intuitive. (I had a terrible time with current density.) He just motored through it symbol by symbol and expected everybody to understand. We didn't. (I am going to take another course in electrodynamics at another university some day just so I can understand Maxwell's equations. For me there is nothing riding on this except intellectual curiosity. For other undergraduates, the type of course I just described was a killer.)

I'll stop now but I am sure there are other who could chime in with other problems.

Bottom Line: I like physics and I intend to learn more, but physics teaching should change.

Oh? First year EE student? That's cute. Go buy a copy of this book right now, and don't wait 'til after completing a BS to brush over important concepts. This was singlehandedly more comprehensive than most of my individual courses.

Griffith's Electrodynamics has a decent introduction to special relativity. Otherwise, Hartle's book is geared towards the advanced undergrad. Also, Schultz is good too.

Practical Electronics for Inventors is a great resource.

Investigate your local community colleges. It's becoming more and more common for them to have prototyping labs (with things like 3D printers and general machine shop resources) that are available (essentially) to the general public.

This is pretty great, especially for the price. It is sectioned off into multiple topics, but refers to the other sections as far as design is concerned. It does have some basics, but gets pretty complicated in some of the opamp sections.

Can you get through a paywall?

Here is a tutorial on optical antennas. Pretty nice, if I do say so myself ;)

Jackson's electrodynamics has a chapter on the dielectric response of metals. Chapter 7, section 5. "Frequency dispersion characteristics of dielectrics, conductors, and plasmas."

Novotny's nano optics book has a brief review of dielectric response, and talks a lot about the antenna analogy.

For Calculus:

Calculus Early Transcendentals by James Stewart

^ Link to Amazon

Khan Academy Calculus Youtube Playlist

For Physics:

Introductory Physics by Giancoli

^ Link to Amazon

Crash Course Physics Youtube Playlist

Here are additional reading materials when you're a bit farther along:

Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences by Mary Boas

Modern Physics by Randy Harris

Classical Mechanics by John Taylor

Introduction to Electrodynamics by Griffiths

Introduction to Quantum Mechanics by Griffiths

Introduction to Particle Physics by Griffiths

The Feynman Lectures

With most of these you will be able to find PDFs of the book and the solutions. Otherwise if you prefer hardcopies you can get them on Amazon. I used to be adigital guy but have switched to physical copies because they are easier to reference in my opinion. Let me know if this helps and if you need more.

I found the book "Practical Electronics for Inventors" to be very helpful explaining things when I was getting started. It starts from results and metaphors and then introduces theory. Sort of the opposite of a lot of textbooks that are theory oriented and light on practical uses and metaphorical explanations of components.

With that book and some Arduinos I have gone on to fame (well my mom thinks I am famous) and fortune (I am a hundred-aire!) selling electronics I design and program.

I use this in my Electrical and computer engineering course in college...

Practical Electronics For Inventors

We are really only going over theory and some diode/transistors. But it was cheap and it looks like an excellent book that I will keep in my own personal library

and 20 bucks aint too shabby

I would do it, but with family obligations, I just don't have the time.

There are plenty of good tutorials on how to solder on YouTube. The gist of it is to heat up the components with the iron, then add solder. It just takes practice. And don't buy the cheap solder -- you'll get poor results even with the proper technique.

As far as electronics theory, I like this book as a basic reference.

When you get to building a tube amp, I would recommend modifying or refurbishing one before you go for a scratch build. Do you mean a tube hi-fi amp or a tube guitar/bass amp?

Last summer while on holiday I was laying on the poolside chairs (hiding from the intense midday sun, the sea/pools were empty around noon), reading The Art of Electronics. I had it on the foot side on my chair, laying on my stomach so you could see the book when going around.

The hotel staff was running around, giving out cold water, entertaining kids etc. One of them went by me, did a double take on the book (I was on some page with a lot of circuit diagrams, graphs, ... ), stopped and asked if he could have a look. I said sure, he picked it up, flipped through it, shook his head and went away without saying a word.

Not really sure what he though, but it certainly wasn't the standard beach reading material.

This is a pretty good guide to the electronics part. Find kits on AliExpress for the components.

The basics are usually always covered, just no in the same depth. The course is more about building a mathematical frame work that works for E&M. Maxwells equations should be introduced and a bit of derivations. Conceptually its a tough course, but is been a few years since ive taken it. If you want to practice look up the Griffiths book on electricity and magnetism.

Amazon link:https://www.amazon.ca/Introduction-Electrodynamics-4th-David-Griffiths/dp/0321856562

(Look for some free downloads)

Thank you! I think I might buy Make: Electronics or Practical Electronics for Inventors just to have on hand as a quick reference manual.

I am in a similar boat like yourself and found the following useful.

• Designing Embedded Hardware by John Catsoulis, 2nd Ed. - A very logical approach to HW without drowning in Electronics.
  
  
• Introduction to Embedded Systems by Jimenez, Palomera et.al. - Just enough explanations of HW accompanied by how to use it in SW.
  
  
• Practical Electronics for Inventors by Scherz, Monk 4th Ed.
  

+1 for recommending Practical Electronics for Inventors. I highly, highly, highly recommend this book. I am currently an electrical engineering grad student and I still reference this book from time to time when working through simple circuits, either for debugging or optimization.

http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336

Thanks!

link for anyone interested: http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957

In India at least, we have official Indian editions of American textbooks. The only difference is the quality of paper used, binding and print quality, and the fact that the textbook is b&w. But this doesn't matter, and obviously the 75% price drop is more valuable. Good deal.

Edit:
For example, Indian ed vs American ed