Fundamentals of Electric Circuits 6th Edition

Book Preface

In keeping with our focus on space for covers for our book, we have chosen the NASA Voyager spacecraft for the sixth edition. The reason for this is that like any spacecraft there are many circuits that play critical roles in their functionality. The beginning of the Voyager 1 and 2 odyssey began on August 20, 1977, for Voyager 2 and on September 5, 1977, for Voyager 1. Both were launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Voyager 1 was launched on a faster orbit so it eventually became the first man-made object to leave our solar system. There is some debate over whether it has actually left the solar system, but it certainly will at some point in time. Voyager 2 and two Pioneer spacecraft will also leave the solar system at some point in time.Voyager 1 is still functioning and sending back data, a truly significant achievement for NASA engineers. The design processes that make the Voyager operate so reliably are based on the fundamentals discussed in this textbook. Finally, space is vast so that Voyager 1 will fly past other solar systems; the odds of actually coming into contact with something are so remote that it may virtually fly through the universe forever! For more about Voyager 1, go to NASA’s website: www.nasa.gov/.Features

New to This Edition

We have added learning objectives to each chapter to reflect what we believe are the most important items to learn from each chapter. These should help you focus more carefully on what you should be learning. There are more than 580 revised end-of-chapter problems, new endof- chapter problems, and revised practice problems. We continue to try and make our problems as practical as possible.

In addition, we have improved Connect for this edition by increasing the number of problems available substantially. Now, professors may select from more than a thousand problems as they build thier online homework assignments.

We have also built SmartBook for this edition. With SmartBook, students get the same text as the print version, along with personalized tips on what to study next, thanks to SmartBook’s adaptive technology.

Retained from Previous Editions

A course in circuit analysis is perhaps the first exposure students have to electrical engineering. This is also a place where we can enhance some of the skills that they will later need as they learn how to design. An important part of this book is our 121 design a problem problems. These problems were developed to enhance skills that are an important part of the design process. We know it is not possible to fully develop a student’s design skills in a fundamental course like circuits. To fully develop design skills a student needs a design experience normally reserved for their senior year. This does not mean that some of those skills cannot be developed and exercised in a circuits course. The text already included open-ended questions that help students use creativity, which is an important part of learning how to design.

We already have some questions that are open-ended but we desired to add much more into our text in this important area and have developed an approach to do just that. When we develop problems for the student to solve our goal is that in solving the problem the student learns more about the theory and the problem solving process. Why not have the students design problems like we do? That is exactly what we do in each chapter. Within the normal problem set, we have a set of problems where we ask the student to design a problem to help other students better understand an important concept. This has two very important results. The first will be a better understanding of the basic theory and the second will be the enhancement of some of the student’s basic design skills. We are making effective use of the principle of learning by teaching. Essentially we all learn better when we teach a subject. Designing effective problems is a key part of the teaching process. Students should also be encouraged to develop problems, when appropriate, which have nice numbers and do not necessarily overemphasize complicated mathematical manipulations. A very important advantage to our textbook, we have a total of 2,481
Examples, Practice Problems, Review Questions, and End-of-Chapter Problems! Answers are provided for all practice problems and the odd numbered end-of-chapter problems.