Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

After reading through all the reviews and quickly attempting to discern the background of each reviewer through contextual clues, it has reinforced the idea that physics majors hate this book and engineers enjoy it.

Speaking as a prior physics major and now currently an EE major, I have seen both types of texts. A dynamics book would cover the subject with much less explanation (while allowing more critical thought, although requiring a much closer reading) and leave it up to the reader to fill in the pieces. A great exercise in the critical thinking physics majors need.

Engineers need to know the facts and how to approach the problems to get a meaningful result and this is exactly what the book provides. I was bothered by the presentation in this regard having used physics texts but I have seen much much worse.

Like the title of the book says, its applied fundamentals of emag and that is exactly what is laid out in the text.

If you're thinking about getting the International edition of this text to save money, you should be aware that it is slightly different! The problems at the end of each chapter are different--they'll have a 3 where US edition has a 5, there will be an extra part to a question, etc. Just something you should know if you'll have homework problems assigned from the text! Wish I had known... :(

...this book is a great investment. Ulaby is kind enough to cover the math - THEN the subject, which unless you're proficient in vector calc, will be important. There are examples - they have answers! This is a wonderful place to start your journey into electromagnetics, particularly if you learn through doing. I really came to understand Maxwell's equations through this book. The only downside (if you could call it that) is the lack of theory, but don't worry - that'll come. You may not be able to derive Maxwell's equations but you can use'm!

Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics (5th Edition)
The author of this book currently teaches at in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department at my University (Univeristy of Michigan -- Ann Arbor), which is surely one reason why the book is used in the electromagnetics courses (200-400 level undergraduate) here. Like other reviewers have mentioned, the book does contain a lot of useful formulas, however it only derives a few of them. Furthermore, from reading this book, I did not gain any intuitive understanding of most of the fundamental concepts of electromagnetics (which is probably my single largest criticism of the book). Instead, I got through my courses by searching for the right formulas for a given problem, which I hate doing. I've heard other students at my school rave about this book, but I wouldn't purchase it again.

I will agree with many of the negative reviews that this book does skim over a lot of details and leaves out many important concepts. However, it is meant to be used in an introductory course - not a senior level or graduate course. I find it is a great reference for equations, and it was easy to learn from. I gained an understanding of the basics, and it prepared me for a more in-depth coverage of electromagnetic theory. For electrical engineers who do not plan to further study electromagnetics, this text covers the background you will need in other areas.

I am a Senior in EE at the University of Florida in Gainesville, and I used this textbook in an introductory class in Electromagnetics. The equation tables with the relevant variants of parameters are VERY helpful. However, he diverges from simplicity too much. The proofs and derivations of some excessive equations make reading it very difficult. I give it an average rating since the subject can get very complicated very fast. You will learn from it, and so buy it if your instructor tells you to.

The book is easy to understand and comes with good examples of applications, yet it lacks a chapter in waveguides and it's too simple for two-semesters courses. The newer edition has more problems,and the CD-Rom which are useful.