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Oddly enough, one of my upper level math textbooks (maybe real analysis, don't remember) said the same thing about the definition of a set, except that "later" meant graduate school.

lcamtuf is one of the smartest people I've ever seen. When you read his work you realize he's only sort of putting about 1% of his intelligence on the page.

That answer is not representing the last hundred years of progress fairly. You give an answer like that now at least one level deeper. :-)

As someone who’s had to refresh electronics a few times over the decades, I remember this course as being particularly good, for a couple of reasons.

The whole thing is organized around building explicit abstractions. You’re always making models, and choosing what to pay attention to and what to ignore. By making the real circuit match the model closely enough, you get to ignore the circuit and use it as building block for bigger things. This same approach is used from resistors to amplifiers to logic gates to CPUs.

Of course this how engineering actually works, but I haven’t seen an intro course presented this way so rigorously. If you’re a software person who deals with black box abstractions all day, it feels like home.

The course introduces concepts in order of simplicity, meaning you get MOSFETs and digital gates before you get BJTs. Many courses are arranged chronologically, so after you do Ohm’s law and capacitors you get dumped into BJTs, which are one of the most complicated things in the discrete toolkit, and hardly ever found in common use nowadays (except as cheap switches). Instead, you’re happily making amplifiers, switches, and logic with FETs, a much gentler introduction.

I also remember somewhere in the course lectures the professor says (paraphrased) “You may be thinking, why do I need to learn how a logic family works? Won’t I just be using some existing chip? This is MIT — you’re supposed to be the one making the chip.”

The PDF no longer appears to be there or at least is well hidden.

Have a look at Blackwells rather than Amazon:

https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/The-Secret-Life-of...

But are you trying to ship out of the UK? Amazon UK also says they will ship in October and not November.

I find it crazy that Amazon haven't implemented a feature that will take you to the same product in your local store easily. I had the same issue and had to go find it manually.

The barrage of "X not Y" almost made me think that this was AI-generated. But I guess some people just talk like that.

I respectfully disagree.

I'm not sure who exactly this book is for, but it's certainly not for absolute beginners. There is a huge delta between the target audience and the level of understanding and experience someone not knowing a first thing about electronics would typically have.

I can clearly remember sitting there reading about component parasitics, without even having a clear idea how an ideal component behaves, and so on. I was just lacking buckets of context, and it was a painful read with lots of assumptions about the reader's background.

On the other hand, I still think it is a great book, like pretty much everything else from NoStarch. I just disagree on it being suitable as a first book in electronics.

That said, I'm looking forward to the day when I will be on an adequate enough level to read it again -- this time, in its entirety.

That’s also what I really like about “Practical Electronics for Inventors”, the authors explains the underlying physics for each component. Though the theory chapter can be heavy if you want to follow everything. “Secrets Life of Circuits” seems to be a bit more approachable

My objective has often been to build & test as many experimental circuits as I could in the shortest amount of time.

One of the real good shortcuts is to just start soldering parts together according to a plan in your head, without taking the time to make a schematic drawing beforehand or do any advanced calculations.

There might be more emphasis on the properties and ratings of each component this way, this is not something to skip over, you should be very familiar with each component you use. Well in advance, and loads of hours of component study needs to be behind you, otherwise you may not do too good at just whipping something up on the bench that's electrically sound to begin with.

As pointed out, with math it can be the same way.

If you just want to quickly start picking up parts and soldering them together right away without doing any advanced calculations, the best shortcut is to have already become quite familiar with the equations including calculus when necessary, so you can bring to bear endless hours of mathematical study and use it to intuitively guide your soldering iron for every hour at the bench.

Edit: upvoted because your message should not be less than neutral, not greyed out at all. Obviously, I'm on the fence, sometimes I use math, other times not at all ;)

Ha, Ha, True.

That was a silly statement by the author; just say that this is "less theoretical" and not a textbook.

Looked at the contents/sample chapter and it seems just like many of the books published by make magazine.

They have. When you need more math -- and you will if you stick with this business for very long -- it'll usually be obvious, and you can pick up those skills then. It's never been easier.

PE4I (“Practical Electronics for Inventors”) has a whole chapter dedicated to sensors

Make: has a 3-vol series Encyclopedia of Electronic Components one of which is on Sensors - https://www.makershed.com/collections/books-on-electronics/p...

Also see Sensors and Signal Conditioning by Ramon Pallas-Areny and John Webster for a theoretical combination treatment.

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I like the pop art style. But what is she going to do with that soldering iron - stick it up her nose?

Congratulations, you are now quoted on the page!

What ? It's very lisible even if I prefer the text to be justified

This made me have a look and I do like it a lot.

The wide margins remind me of university coursebooks.

Sir, you have a knack for inspiring commentary: the exact opposite of damning with faint praise! Also 0% slop it made me pre-order the book immediately.

Why in the world would you write something like that. Genuinely, what good does this do, other than hurt people?

Baskerville's fine. Bland, but fine.

"She's a child!" shouted Albert.

"IT'S AN EDUCATIONAL TOY."

"What if she cuts herself?"

"THAT WILL BE A PAINFUL LESSON."