Preface

Summary

This book provides an introduction to electrical circuits that will serve as a foundation for courses in electronics, communications and power systems at first degree level. The first three chapters will be found particularly suitable as prerequisite reading for the companion volume in this series; Analogue and digital electronics for engineers by H. Ahmed and P.J. Spreadbury. Engineering and science students not intending to specialise in electrical subjects will find in this book most of the circuit theory required for a first degree.

The level of presentation presupposes that students will have encountered the basic ideas of electromagnetism and electrical circuits, including the laws of Faraday, Ohm and Kirchhoff. These ideas are reviewed in chapter 1. Mathematical skills are assumed to extend to the solution of firstorder differential equations, and to the elements of complex algebra. Courses in mathematics taken concurrently with those in electrical subjects during the earlier part of a degree course would be expected to fill in progressively the additional mathematical background required; the subject matter has been arranged with this in mind. Sections which may give rise to mathematical difficulties on a first reading, or which may be too specialised for the general student's requirements, are indicated by an obelus (†).

A traditional approach to the development of electrical circuit theory is adopted: the concept of linearity, and the circuit theorems and analytical techniques which stem from this concept, are all presented in chapter 2 within the context of d.c. circuits.