I didn’t learn about electronics correctly. It wasn’t taught to me in an orderly
fashion. High school and junior high school teachers didn’t begin one day and
say, “OK, today we’ll learn all about electronics in a couple of hours”. Nope,
it was not accomplished in that manner at all. I had no idea that all this other
stuff we were taught in science classes would eventually come together to reveal
the workings of electronics. Perhaps if my teachers had said that all this was
going to be about electronics at the time, I would have been more interested and
paid more attention. It was fed to us over a period of months and years a
teaspoonful at a time with no cohesive direction or meaning by lots of different
teachers. Its nuances, derivations, historical contexts, and associations were
not presented in opportune circumstances. Consequently, the elegance of the
field escaped me for the longest time and I was denied an overall appreciation
of the interlocking disciplines of physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, and
mathematics. Thermodynamics? Say what? Relax, merely a medium sized word
meaning the movement of heat, like air conditioning in August. There is no
possible way I could now assert that I am expert, or even sufficiently
conversant in the subject to warrant that I will be successful in teaching you
an appreciation of electronics. What I would like to try though is to convey to
you some of those realizations and revelations that have intrigued me and led me
to maintain a continued interest in the subject. In doing this, perhaps I can
pique your interest sufficiently for you to be inspired enough to continue
exploration and discovery on your own from other sources.

This blog is a VERY short introduction to electronics, a subject than can entail
many, many feet of bookshelf space to cover a reasonable understanding of the
subject. Electronics is such a broad field, contains many sub-areas of
expertise, that is will seem daunting to you at first, even discouraging to
think of undertaking it. From components, to circuits, to devices, and entire
fields of study, electronics can be a lifelong interest or a lifelong career.
Hopefully this blog can get you started in a short time so that you can explore
all the other possible paths at your own convenience.

This blog draws heavily upon a few reference texts that have proven useful to me
over the years. The first is Electronic Communication by Robert L. Schrader. I
have a couple editions of this book but I don’t know if it is still in print. If
not, it should be readily available from used book stores, it has been an
excellent and very widely used text for many years. I have used Shrader’s book to a wide degree is this blog because of the clarity of presentation, thorough explanation at this level of understanding, and brevity of complexity. This blog conveys an introduction, not a PhD thesis on the subjects. Additionally, I also usedthe Art of Electronics by Paul Horowitz and Winfield Hill. This book is still in print and is a very comprehensive (an understatement) text on the basics of components and circuit design. Wading into the Art of Electronics, it would be
advised to start with a book like Schrader’s first.

To fully and truly understand the field, you are going to have involve yourself
in mathematics. There is no escaping it because all the disciplines of physics
interact – they are all related and impact and influence each other. The only
way to appreciate that is with the use of mathematics. Optics, magnetics,
electrodynamics (the physics of the movement of atoms and their constituents)
and more are all involved. Albert Einstein tried his best to derive a set of
equations and mathematics that completely encompass all the electric, magnetic,
and atomic forces. He was not successful within his lifetime, nor has anyone
else yet accomplished what is called a “unification” theory. Consequently, and
just perhaps, there may not be a unification. It may remain a collection of bits
and pieces of understanding and conjecture and observation that defy a single,
overall cohesive description. By earth humans at least. Proficiency in algebra
and trigonometry are required to obtain skills and comfort in basic electronics.
To fully understand what happens when electronics are involved in motion or
radio or optics will require knowledge of calculus because stuff moves. Calculus
is mathematics that describes the behavior of things when they change position
or value over time, in other words, are dynamic. Doesn’t take too much to get
things moving in electronics. Calculus comes to the rescue to explain why things
happen.

We can begin with a description of what the field of electronics is. It is a
very broad area comprising many individual elements and combinations of those
elements in lots of different ways. For example, light, electricity, chemistry,
and physics all combine to yield the intriguing device, a Light Emitting Diode
or LED. Seems a pretty simple device – but not. First developed in the early
1970’s, only recently have blue and white ones become available. Now draped over
Christmas trees in many different colors, originally it was possible to
fabricate LEDs that radiated only red light. Even then, the fact that the light
was available without the high temperatures associated with the glowing
filaments of incandescent bulbs caused many of us to delight in holding a
glowing LED in our fingers, marveling in the light available without heat.
Nothing short of magic. Same with WiFi. Instantaneous high speed data
communications between you and someone halfway around the world via the internet
without an intervening wire or even wet string. Again, nothing short of magic.
Silent, high speed motors that rotate the platters inside hard disk drives and
DVD players. Again, elements of the field of electronics. Television, LCD
display screens, MRI (magnetic resonance imagery), the 3D movie Finding Nemo,
and the recorded music sung by Mariah Carey. Once again, all made possible by
elements of electronics. GPS navigation, cell phones, fish finders, weather
radar, cash registers, microwave ovens, air conditioning thermostats, probably
your wrist watch. Yep, all composed of combinations of elements of electronics.
Aren’t you curious about how all those things work? Surprisingly, as different
as they all are, they are also remarkably similar. The field of electronics then
merely simplifies to the activity of manipulation and movement of electrons to
perform useful functions and work.

73… W3SEH