Customer Reviews

Signal Processing and Linear Systems

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is truly a superior book for teaching Signals and Systems. It far outpaces the competition in my mind, especially in terms of conceptual descriptions, examples, and readability. It was the only text (I have looked at the most popular 6) that I found that is written in a coherent and readable manner, such that it could serve as a standalone self-paced tutorial.

I am teaching this course for the first time this fall and found almost every one of my student's (and mine) conceptual and mathematical questions answered clearly by this text. I naively adopted Oppenheim since it is a classic, but that text truly pales in comparison.
Examples of things I appreciate in Lathi:
1) It serves as an excellent reference book, with a background mathematics section, tables of transforms and properties.
2) It generally starts each subject at the right point (e.g., with the trigonometic Fourier Series) to give student better conceptual understanding. I doesn't skip the basics.
3) It answers many common conceptual questions like "What is the meaning of negative frequencies in the FT?", "What do complex numbers mean physically?"
4) I love the history and wit (Is it a sin to make a textbook readable and even enjoyable?)
5) A lot of references to real engineering applications. For example, a REAL chapter on DIGITAL FILTER DESIGN.

I could go on, but it is obvious that the author put a great deal of care into this text and even the solutions CD. This, for upper-level undergraduate texts, in my opinion, is truly rare (see however, "Griffiths" and "Zahn" for E&M)

NOTE: By the way, for a previous reviewer, Ms. Chaston, in my text, the appendices are located on pages 161, 222, 356, 457, and 609.

Finally, I must admit that my own stupid prejudice cost me from adopting this textbook this year. I thought to myself, can a book written by a man with the name "Bhagawandas Pannalal" truly write this eloquently in English? As I get more in depth into the book, the answer is clearly YES and more.

This book is perfect for self-study. The explanations are the clearest I have seen. The worked examples are completely explained. Solutions to selected problems are given in the back of the book.

I bought 4 texts for the purpose of educating myself in "Signals and Systems".

1. Signal Processing & Linear Systems(Lathi) 2. An Introduction to Circuit Analysis(Scott) 3. Signals & Systems(Cont. & Discrete - Ziemer) 4. Signals & Systems(Oppenheim & Willsky)

While each of these texts has it's strengths, none of them explains things as clearly as Lathi. He is truly a gifted author.

I dread buying text books for school, usually I will buy them, pay 100 dollars, reference them 1 time for an obscure project for that semester, and be done with them.

This book was completely the opposite of it. My teacher understood the significance and clarity of this book and relied on it heavily, the more I read it, the more I understood the topic. Lathi is writing about a very dry and tough to understand topic when he chose to write about continuous and discrete time systems. But this book is anything but boring and dry.

He spruces up the language so that it is interesting, and readable; and his explanations about even the most complicated topics are very understandable thanks to many illustrations and examples done in the book.

If you have a choice in your class to buy this book or borrow it, buy it and you will not regret it, this book will be helpful in learning, and prove to be a valuable resource after you finish with the class.

The book is well written in a style that most undergraduates should like. The book is required reading in my undergraduate courses on discrete-time signals and systems. I like the book. It has only a few flaws that I outline below.

1.Section 5.1-4 titled

"Dual of the Time-Sampling: The Spectral Sampling Theorem"

contains a serious technical error. To obtain the Spectral Interpolation formula (5.14) page 337, you need to require that the signal f(t) is zero for ABSOLUTE t greater than or equal to tau, NOT just t greater than or equal to tau (as Lathi states). This SERIOUS error causes considerable confusion in Section 5.2.

2.After covering the classical low-pass sampling theorem, a study of discrete time signals should progress to the discrete- time Fourier transform (DTFT) BEFORE discussing the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) or fast-Fourier transform (FFT). After discussing the sampling theorem, Lathi covers the DFT and FFT, and puts off the DTFT until much later. Basically, he has the coverage of these topics out of order, in my opinion.

Generally, the book is easy to read and understand. Undergraduate students should like the text.

this is a gem of a book on this subject no need to waste ur time reading abtruse and unfriendly books,the writer of this books comes down to the understanding of average student to explain the beautifull ideas of this subject.he is crystal clear about the subject and i have not found any book as good as this . he gives a good brushing up review in mathematics which is very very helpful.take my my advice ur money is safe in buying it .to do more numerical problems u can refer to A.V Oppenheim(a more difficult book).
rohit

Although the quality of a text book is critical in determining the success of a course (whether measured in amount learned or grades), so often little attention is given to its selection. The fatal consequences of this negligence is the thick, impenetrable volume that afflicts frustration, discouragement, and confusion. But for the fortunate few who choose Lathi's Signal Processing and Linear Systems, this fate will be easily avoided.

Any text that has the sense of humor to say,

"The inverse transform of none of the above functions is directly available in Table 6.1"

is OK in my book.

In addition to moments of wit and the occasional cartoon, Lathi's text is illuminating, coherent, and understandable. The ability to see inside the student's head and anticipate difficult material which may be misunderstood is the mark of a fine text book author, and Lathi demonstrates this with grace. Employing humor, metaphor, and fluid writing, Lathi has written a text that is pain-free to read and perhaps occasionally even pleasurable.

If teachers taught how Lathi writes, our education problems would be solved.

This book clearly explains the physical significance of many phenomenon and topics that we come across in this subject. The most striking feature is that it does so from the fundamental linear differential equation and gives us very good insight of the subject and a sense of completeness . Definitely its better than Oppenheim book which deals the subject a bit more mathematical.

I'm a electrical engeniering student and i took this book for self study in a course of signals and systems. This is a very wwell writing book and is strongly recommended. There are a lot of example and the entireconcept is well explain.

This book is the best available in market to understand the basics of Signal Processing with crisp explanations and very good mathematical treatment. Still I feel that, after reading this book one must switch to EITHER the book by Proakis and Manolakis OR the book by Oppenheim for more thorough knowledge. The knowledge gained from Prof Lathi's book makes others easy to comprehend. I would strongly recommend this book to any novice in Signal Processing domain.

Really hard to follow the first time through the book, but worth keeping after the class as a reference book.