Customer Reviews

Applied Electromagnetism (Pws Engineering Foundation)

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I just completed a junior-level course which made use of this text. Although the topics are arranged differently than in similar textbooks, I found the explainations of EM concepts quite good. The main strength is getting right to Maxwell's equations in chapter two (--after all, that's what EM is all about, right?). Maxwell's equations are explained well and at an introductory level so that the reader is not overwhelmed. The main weakness is the very underdeveloped first chapter, "Complex Vectors" which is too brief and oversimplified for the subject matter at hand. The book also presents very informative and even entertaining asides on applications, such as "anti-glare headlights" (polarization), "tails of comets" (radiation pressure) and "microwave ovens" (penetration depth). Overall, a very good first EM book.

Pros: Relate EM into real life examples, which makes the book interesting to read. Simple but powerful examples and equations which made my life a lot easier.
Cons: Lack of example and pratice problems.
Overall: Very nice book to read for understanding of the materials, but you'll need to pratice problems on your own.

I'm currently in an electromagnetics course that uses this book and this book is awful. The author cannot explain the concepts in a clear manner. The author skips parts of the explaination leaving me confused as to what he did. Also the examples in the book are not very good, an answer is given with little or no work. The book needs more examples and needs to explain the concepts much better. If you're in a course that uses this book get another book, such as Schaum's Outline of Electromagnetics. From a student point of view, this is a horrible book.

This was not a good book. I found it very difficult tounderstand and learn from. It is the required text for a class I'min. I am currently looking around Amazon.com for a text to replace it. Save money. Buy something else.