Customer Reviews

Field and Wave Electromagnetics (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Electromagnetism is a hard subject for many people, including myself. The best approach is to get a few good books on the subject rather than rely on one book. After doing a survey, I finally bought the following books suitable for my level: (i) Introductory Electromagnetics by Popovic and Popovic; (ii) Field and Wave Electromagnetics by Cheng; (iii) Electromagnetics with Applications by Kraus; (iv) Schaums Outline of Electromagnetics by Edminister. I give five stars to all these books. (There is another book which I will not review or identify, because it turned out to be unsatisfactory.)

I am reviewing these four books in one go because they are interrelated. Each of these book is strong in its own unique area.

Introductory Electromagnetics by Popovic and Popovic is the best of these book for gaining an intuitive understanding of the difficult subject of electromagnetism. Its clarity and elegance reminds me of Feynman's Lectures in Physics. Every chapter is a work of inspiration. The carefully chosen examples are designed to impart understanding of electromagnetic principles rather than calculation skills. The book is excellent for those who are new to the subject. It is also excellent for those who have already learned some electromagnetics, but who feel that their understanding is still shaky.

Field and Wave Electromagnetics by Cheng is the best of these books in terms of the mathematical development of electromagnetics. Although this approach may seem difficult at first glance, ironically the mathematical rigour makes the subject much easier to grasp. That is because mathematical precision goes a long way towards illuminating subtle principles of electromagnetism. As a result, this book, more so than any other book, has given me the confidence to handle the difficult subject of electromagnetism.

Electromagnetics With Application by Kraus is the least systematic of these books, with some of the discussions being disjoint and abrupt. It is, however, valuable for its interesting and practical examples. It is a must-have book for anyone who is serious about electromagnetism.

Schaums Outline of Electromagnetics, by Edminister, is an outstanding collection of problems and solutions, as well as summaries. It mirrors the excellence of Edminister's other Schaums Outline, namely, Electric Circuits.

In summary, these four books have different strengths, respectively the following: (i) intuitive development; (ii) systematic development; (iii) practical application; and (iv) problem solving. These books form an awesome quartet, covering all the bases, and will provide you with a good foundation for advanced studies. A useful supplement for these books is Schaums Mathematical Handbook of Formulas and Tables.

I had this book as my text book in Purdue University. Frankly speaking, most people will have no clue what it is talking after reading it for the first time because this book describes electromagnetism more from a mathematical point of view. From the start it just throws hypothesis, derivations and formulae to the reader and there are few examples, therefore readers without adequate and solid background in maths(especially in vector calculus) will be quickly confused by this book and lose the big picture. This book serves nicely as a reference but if you are not that familiar in this field, I would recommend other books. One of them is 'electromagnetics' by Kraus which is not as mathematical rigorous as this book, but more readable.

This book takes an axiomatic approach. It states mathematical postulates of EM theory and goes on to develop results. Overall, the presentation is very nice, with plenty of examples to illustrate what's going on. It covers a wealth of material, from basic electro/magneto-statics to waves, antennas, transmission lines, etc.. and can be used as a reference. The only drawback--it lacks those lively, exciting example problems you find in a general physics book. This is not a big deal, but would be nice to have. They sometimes help illustrate concepts more clearly.

While I took Electromagnetic Fields I & II courses using the first and last half of this text, I also purchased other solutions manuals and texts to survive. This was, to me, by far the most clearly written and well-presented text.

16 years after having taken the course, I'm doing a cover-to-cover review of this book and given my industry experience I appreciate the excellence of this book even more. The downside to using it is that I've found a real difficulty in locating the Solutions Manual, leaving me to use others where there's always changes in variables, ordering, and approaches which build in inefficiencies/overhead.

This book is appropirate for engineers rather than physicists. It contains many easy-to-understand examples and exercise problems with solution. Through out reading, you will easily get on what you had been intended to achieve. It will be a sort of corner stone to jump up to deal with more advanced subjects such like photonics or laser engineering. The only disadvantages i picked out is that the author is not so benign enough to explain detail process of what it goes behind, which, in some meaning, is more serious topic than what he had want to point out. Thanx for reading up. Hope god will with you, when you hold this book.

This is the textbook for my sophomore electromagnetics in the electrical engineering. I have to admit I really hated this class then. One is that there are equations here and there and it usually clouds the issue. Another reason is that the author uses the deduction method to describe this topic. It is quite different from the traditional way which goes following the historical developments.

For some reasons, I need to refresh electromagnetics in later years. I re-studied this book and then found it written pretty well this time. It is well-organized and systematic. One weak spot is the explanation for physics. I think it should be made better so that it is easier for readers to absorb the knowledge instead of confused by those mathematical equations.

This book is rather classic, which means it stays at the balance of electromagnetic statics and dynamics. Many recent electromagnetic textbooks are more focused on electromagnetic waves at the expense of the electromagnetic statics. I don't think this is a wise decision since electromagnetic statics is still very important in the real world applications, for example RF IC design.

This book is published almost 20 years ago. But don't regard it as out of date. Based on my acamedic and industrial experience, it is still the best engineering electromagnetic textbook for undergraduates.

Although this is my favorite exposition of fields and waves, Cheng sort of violates what he set out to do. This text is supposed to proceed more logically than others, yet it provides no basis for the basic postulates he introduces. He describes the postulates with one sentence, provides no motivation for them, and does not even describe any experimental basis for them. This is in stark contrast to other books. Also, he incorrectly treats the Lorentz condition from a logical point of view. The Lorentz condition is what helps link electromagnetic fields with electromagnetic waves travelling through space in the time-varying case. Cheng simply states the Lorentz condition because it simplifies another equation for potentials and says that we are at liberty to specify the equation because it contains the divergence of a variable whose curl is already specified earlier; and specifying both the divergence and curl of a vector field uniquely defines the field. This is abrupt, arbitrary reasoning with almost no motivation behind it. He should have at least stated where the Lorentz condition really comes from -- from the theory of relativity and its relation to electromagnetic fields. This would be a more lucid and correct way of linking electromagnetic fields to electromagnetic waves. Besides these shortcomings, this book is unique and excellent overall. For the serious student of electromagnetics, applied scientists, and engineers I recommend getting this book along with Essentials of Electromagnetics for Engineering by Wolf and Electromagnetic Fields and Waves by Lorrain and Corson; Lorrain and Corson's text correctly treats the Lorentz condition and derives it using the theory of relativity. These three texts, when first supplanted by a course in electromagnetism at a reasonable level, will leave one ready for any new encounters in this field, research or applied.

I am a self studier. I bought at least 6 to 7 different books on the subjects including book by Ulaby, Kraus, Popovic, Schwarz, Hayt, J.D. Jackson. This is about the best book. It explain the equations relative clear, quite detail on how to derive the equation. This and Ulaby are the two main book I use. This one is still better. Ulaby is too simplified.

There are a few equations that the reasoning is a little thin, but still is the closest to "the book".

Many thanx to the author, David Cheng. This book shows a systematically and axiomatically mathematical development of electromagnetics where Maxwell's equations is the center. It gives a unique approach that hardly see in other books on the subject. This approach has been described by the author in Preface of the book, so if you're not sure, you should read the preface posted above in Editor's review. There's also conceptual development that one can gain profound insight on through the mathematical development. After all, mathematics is the language of physics. Only through its language one can truly understand it. As Einstein once said that "the creative principle resides in mathematics. In a certain sense, therefore, I hold it true that pure thought can grasp reality, as the ancients dreamed." You will come to appreciate this book, as I do.

There are lot of books on undergraduate electromagnetics. This would be the number one in my list.The books I have and recommend are

1) D.K Cheng

2) Hayt and Buck

3) Ulaby

4) Edminister - Schaum's outline electromagnetics.

5) Spiegel - Schaum's outline vector calculus.

6) You should use Finney and George - calculus along with these books.

The book you should avoid is one by Kraus!!.

If you want to master undergraduate electromagnetics, you should have the 6 books!. There are people who complain about (1), (2) and (3). This is because their mathematical background is not strong. So I recommend (4), (5) and (6) to be used along with (1), (2) and (3).

You simply cannot write books better than (1),(2) and (3).