Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics 2001 Media Edition (With CD-ROM) [Hardcover]

Fawwaz Ulaby (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 31, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0130329312 | ISBN-13: 978-0130329318 | Edition: 2nd

For one/two-semester courses in Electromagnetics. Bridging the gap between electric circuits and electronmagnetics, Ulaby's text leads students from familiar concepts into more advanced topics and applications. Earlier and heavier emphasis on dynamics permits coverage of practical applications in communication systems, radar, optics and solid state computers. A new, interactive CD-ROM allows students to gain physical intuition about electromagnetics.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Bridging the gap between electric circuits and electromagnetics, this text leads students from familiar concepts into more advanced topics and applications. Earlier and heavier emphasis on dynamics permits coverage of practical applications in communication systems, radar, optics, and solid-state computers. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From the Back Cover

Fawwaz T. Ulaby was born in Damascus, Syria and grew up in Beirut, Lebanon. After receiving the B.S. degree in physics from the American University of Beirut, he pursued graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin, from which he received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1968. He then spent the next 16 years as a member of the Electrical Engineering faculty at the University of Kansas, where he was involved in the development of radar sensor technology for environmental and industrial applications.

In 1984, Professor Ulaby moved to the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he is now the University's Vice President for Research and a Williams Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. His research experience includes the design of microwave systems for measuring the dielectric properties of materials; the characterization of radar scattering and microwave emission from terrain; the development of computer algorithms for identifying terrain features using Earth-observing satellite radar systems; and the development of millimeter wave radar sensors for automotive applications. He has published several books on microwave sensor technology, imaging radar design, and the physics of radar scattering from terrain. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and recipient of the 2001 IEEE Electromagnetics Award.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 435 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 2nd edition (January 31, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130329312
• ISBN-13: 978-0130329318
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 8.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,021,355 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slim book, can teach you many concepts, December 19, 2004

By 

Karl Becker (Iowa, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics, 2004 Media Edition (Hardcover)

Electromagnetics book

The lightest textbook in my backpack, but certainly not the emptiest. This high information-density volume contains a wealth of knowledge, examples, and fairly readable text about the subject - and the CD is actually helpful!

At the beginning of the semester I had no idea what material the electromagnetics class consisted of, but now at the end I can look back and see a large number of topics presented in a fairly logical progression. The book's modus operandi is: teach/review the underlying math concept, then use that math to tackle an electromagnetics problem. I enjoyed this approach a lot, though I agree with my professor that the order of presentation is a little questionable. We shuffled between chapters 3 and 4 so as not to dwell on pure math as much and instead deal with physical, practical problems. For example, instead of learning both divergence and curl simultaneously, we first learned divergence and then used it solve some problems involving Electric fields. Then we went back, learned curl, and applied it to different problems.

I was overwhelmed with the sheer variety of topics covered in this course. There seemed to be too many ways to do problems, and I couldn't get a good feel for when to use which method. The book's examples and explanations helped for homework sets, but come test time I usually knew three ways to solve it but wasn't sure which way would produce the proper result. In an hour testing situation, I don't have time to try out all three ways on every problem!

There must be a way to teach these concepts in a more targeted method, but I don't know how. I feel I have a good knowledge of the material from the book, though, and the CD's examples were very good. The CD showed step-by-step work for problems from the text, and had its own examples not in the book that did a good job demonstrating a concept. Don't throw away the CD!

The svelte size of this book impresses me, because it shows the author cared enough to trim his wordage to a reasonable level. This should keep students happy, both in their backpacks and their studying.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Just throws equations at you, October 27, 2008

By 

I. Gurin - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics (5th Edition) (Hardcover)

The text is difficult to follow. The short-range organization is quite good, but the long-range organization is weak. Go to the next page and you will likely have a hard time figuring out how the material there relates to what you were just reading. Many good lectures use this kind of structure, but I find that it does not make a good textbook.

The text lacks coherent derivations. Ulaby just throws equations at you without linking them together strongly. For instance, the input impedance of a transmission line with an arbitrary load (arguably the most important relation in the entire chapter on transmission lines) is derived piecemeal over the course of several sections. The derivation really isn't hard, though - it could easily have been done in two pages. Ulaby does put nice blue boxes around the particularly important equations, but that doesn't help much.

I found the treatment too simple for an upper-division course. Ulaby "misses the forest for the trees" by dwelling on details that should be simple to an upper-division engineering student.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Simple and Clear - Good Backup for Physics Majors, April 16, 2005

By 

physics major - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics, 2004 Media Edition (Hardcover)

Good coverage of the basic concepts of E+M. I found this text very useful as a backup for Griffiths E+M (standard undergrad text for physics majors). The math is simple (not a legendre polynomial in sight) and the concepts are clear. The coverage of static fields in materials is especially easy to understand. You're not going to find the dielectric tensor covered here, just the basics layed out in an intuitive format.