Illustrations

Figure 4. An engineering manual.

Figure 5. An electronics magazine.

Electronics Theory and Practice

Introduction

Electronics is a human technology. It is studied much like any other human technology. I have even sketched out my own course on the subject.

The primary barrier to any learning is the same barrier that presents itself in any attempt to understand anything or to communicate with anything. We communicate using symbolic vias and if the person trying to learn does not understand one of these symbols, learning ceases.

There are ways to get around this problem. They all consist of ways to gain familiarity with the subject without learning its technical terms and symbols. They are useful, but limited. Because if the learner then wants to go ahead and communicate with other students or practitioners using our various symbolic communication methods, he has to know the correct symbols to use and their meanings. In a study of electronics this is particularly important, since practitioners tend to see it  as an exclusive club, and are careless about whether or not their terms are understood. But the only thing that makes it a club is the fact that the meanings of the symbols and terminology of the subject must be learned.

The little course I have sketched out attempts to do this. However, to introduce the subject on some level of comprehensability, I offer the following:

Beings have been mystified for eons about the invisible forces that seem to influence or control them. It is now understood that most such forces would actually fall under the subject of electronics. Electronics, in its pure form, is a study of the energetic behavior of matter all the way down to the level of the electron. The electron is a particle of matter that is so evasive that though it can be used as a tool to study larger atomic particles, it itself remains essentially unobservable, except in rather large groups. That does not, however, mean that its behavior cannot be successfully predicted. This is in the realm of theoretical electronics. Practical electronics simply uses our knowledge about the energetic behavior of matter at the electron level to produce various effects. Generally speaking, this is done by manufacturing various passive and active components with predictable behaviors that can be assembled into circuits that will have more complex, but still predictable, behaviors. These circuits are built up into systems (not a term applied only to electronics) which serve as tools in the hands of human operators. Electronic systems are used to communicate, compute, measure, control, fabricate, heal, disintegrate, confuse, cook, etc., etc. Electronics as a technology embraces the sciences of physics and chemistry, and to a growing extent also draws on the discoveries of biology, neurology, psychology, and spiritual studies (such as Scientology). That is to say, the effects of electronic systems have been found to range from the merely physical all the way out through the neural to the realm of the spiritual.

Resources

Discover Circuits

Doug Johnson's discovercircuits.com is my favorite source for circuit designs, schematics, application notes, and links to other electronics sites.

Datasheets Catalog

This is one of several sites with a huge catalog of datasheets and application notes. I find this one the easiest to use. All the files that I have found there are in pdf format.

Electronics Design News

I have found most of EDN's articles via links from other sites. They are a no-cost (ad-supported) magazine for the electronics industry. They offer many of their articles in pdf format for free, which is something many magazines don't do.

U.S. Navy Electronics Training

One of the first books I read on transistor theory was published by the U.S. Navy. I found it at the library. The Navy is one of the oldest military institutions, and has always taken their job very seriously. Their work totally depends on technology, and they have a tradition of creating and publishing training courses for sailors in all aspects of naval technology, including, of course, electronics. These days the Navy is also heavily involved in space programs. (They don't call them space ships for nothing!)

BasicPracticalElectronics.pdf - my first electronics course