Customer Reviews

Circuits, Signals, and Systems

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I can understand why some people don't like the book. It is brief and odd. However, it is one my favorite books in recent years. It covers lots of things in essence in 600+ pages in a cohesive, well structured manner.

In many detailed textbooks, the authors would adopt a non-rigorous way of arriving at concepts, which was easy to read, but not the method they themselves would use in a paper. When we go to grad school, many of us are surprised by the different derivation methods used for the same idea.

In this book, it never tried to say "hey, read me and you will understand everything." It says "read me, and you have nothing to lose and may even gain something." Reading this book probably brings you closer to how a good engineer/scientist thinks rather than what an author wants you to think, as in other books.

The thoughts are well developed. It is a joy to read if you start from page 1 slowly. This is the kind of book you want to have on a deserted island, not something to read the night before an exam or while stuck by a problem. Not enough detials for exams or lab, but enough to open your eyes. In my personal opinion, unless you are outrageously smart, this is the kind of books that can rescue you from being just another average engineer.

This is a thorough introductory text on the subject of signals and systems. It assumes the reader is skilled in basic analog circuit analysis (RLC, op-amps, etc) and progresses through FFTs. It is probably best used in a classroom setting where the confused reader can refer to other sources for clarification. (This reviewer had Siebert as the lecturer and found lecture and recitation sections invaluable.) The motivated self-study student, however, can learn much. This book's examples couple well with other texts such as Oppenheim and Willsky. This text's (Siebert) clarity also increases proportionally with the reader's math skill level (diff eq's preferred).

Siebert is the ONLY circuits text in print, that I have found,
that stesses signals/systems concepts and is directed to real
BS degree candidates. The problems are informative, challenging,
and puts EE students on the path to becoming real, thinking,
contributing engineers. Quite contrary to ALL of the other
undergraduate texts that come out in an even lower, more
insultingly watered-down version every two years, Siebert gets
BETTER every year, if only by comparison. I love the way it
uses the prerequisite differential equations course; without which electric circuits cannot and do not exist. Students should
find it a fun book to read; full of insight and EE applications.