electricity

Practical Photovoltaics is one of the finest, most comprehensive guides to the world of solar energy. The book starts with a beginer's course in solid state physical devices (which taught even an Electrical Engineer such as myself new things) and leads into the history of solar cell materials and procedures over the years. Next comes an in-depth discussion of the various types of materials, and how they are suited for different applications. He makes logical predictions about the future of some of these materials, and hints around at what new techniques scientists are starting to look at today.
In the appendix, he even describes how to assemble your own array of solar cells for those who wish to try a hands-on approach to learning.
Oh, yeah, one more thing: he has a decent list of recomended readings at the end of each chapter, allowing you to select topics that interest you to continue your reading.

This book is excellent for first or second year college students.
It has a focused approach to the subject .Its pictures are very good.

When I started looking for a backup book for my communications class, I checked out the books at the library. Found this one and had to order it for myself. This book covers details, so anyone with a electrical engineering introduction can understand.

Frenzel starts out by explaining baseband and broadband signals and what types of signals are usually carried on what frequencies. I like that he explains why modulation and carriers are needed and how transmission are affected. This is the first book I have seen to explain reason behind operations on signals. Frenzel uses plenty of examples and explainations of operations performed for each type of modulation. The first few chapters are about the types of modulations and why those modulations are used in particular areas. Then Frenzel explains the process for AM, FM, and PM and gives example problems.

Compared to the Couch communications book "Digital and Analog Communications", if you have to get Couch, get Frenzel's as a reference and study guide. You'll never regret it.

Rechageable Zinc batteries is a fairly technical book that will require several readings of the many papers presented in the book. Half of the book is about Nickel/Zinc batteries and their problems and proposed solutions. The rest of the book is devoted to Silver/ zinc and other battery types. Recommended reading for one who is interested in creating their own EV batteries or who is interested in this type of storage battery technology

Review of "A Promenade Along Electrodynamics," by Junichiro Fukai (Vales Lake Publishing,
Pueblo West, USA, 2003, ISBN: 0-9714845-1-1)

Dr. Fukai of Auburn University published a remarkable book of 126 pages. It presents many
interesting ideas related with electromagnetism not covered by normal textbooks. It is divided in 9
chapters which run as follows: Introduction, Forces Between Two Charges Moving with Constant
Velocities, Comparison with Relativistic Treatment, Ampere's Force Law, High Speed Limit and
Comparison with the Special Theory of Relativity, Scattering and Orbit Problem, A More General
Theory - An Encounter with Weber's Force Law, Applications of Weber's Electrodynamics,
The Propagation of Electrical Signals in Vacuum. It ends with an Epilogue and two Appendices
including biographies of notable physicists in the 19th century, a good Bibliography and an Index.

The book begins presenting Lorentz's force acting on a test charge in the presence of electric and
magnetic fields. This is the standard formula of classical electromagnetism but has some problems
of symmetry, lack of action and reaction, paradoxes which arise when we change frames of
reference etc. Some of these aspects are presented in the introduction of the book. It is then
followed by a new force formula to replace Lorentz's expression, which avoids these paradoxes.
The new expression is compared with standard relativistic treatment for the interaction between
moving charges.

In Chapter 4 the author presents Ampere's force law between current elements. Only by this
fact this book should be read by all specialists and students of electrodynamics. The reason is that
Ampere's expression has been forgotten and is not to be found in most textbooks dealing with
electrodynamics, which only present Grassmann's force (based on Biot-Savart's expression of the
magnetic field of a current element and compatible with Lorentz's force). Despite this fact is should
be remembered that Maxwell himself knew both expresssions for the force between current elements
(those of Ampere and Grassmann). In his masterpiece, A Treatise
on Electricity and Magnetism, Vol. 2, page 174, paragraph 527, Maxwell compared these expressions
and concluded that Ampere's force is undoubtedly the best, since it made the forces on the two elements
not only equal and opposite but in the straight line which joins them. Grassmann's force, on the other hand,
does not comply with action and reaction (the same as regards Lorentz's force). In the next page,
paragraph 528, Maxwell said that Ampere's force should always remain the cardinal formula of
electrodynamics. Modern books dealing with electromagnetism have forgotten about this and present
only Grassmann's problematic expression. Fukai suceeds in deriving Ampere's force from his own more
basic expression which deals with the interaction between point charges. He also discusses Rutherfod
scattering formula and the orbit problem for two charges interacting with one another.

Chapters 7 and 8 are devoted to Weber's electrodynamics and applications of this fascinating theory
which was proposed by Maxwell's contemporary Wilhelm Weber, who worked in Goettingen in
collaboration with Carl Friedrich Gauss (the same Weber of the magnetic flux unit). Weber's force is
an extension of Coulomb's expression including terms which depend on the relative velocity and
acceleration between the interacting bodies. Weber introduced in his expression the fundamental constant
c and was the first to measure it in collaboration with Kohlrausch, finding essentially the same value
as light velocity in vacuum, indicating a connection between electrodynamics and optics. All of this
was done before Maxwell and his electromanetic theory of light. Weber and Kirchhoff also suceeded
in deriving the telegraphy equation for a disturbance propagating along a wire which predicted the
propagation of the signal in wires of negligible resistance at light velocity, once more before Maxwell!
All of this is almost unknown nowadays but is discussed at length in Fukai's fascinating work. He
also extends this work for the propagation of electrical signals in vacuum by considering it as composed
of pairs of positive and negative charges. Fukai's
also shows in details the compatibility of Weber's force with Maxwell's equations (but not with
Lorentz's force law). He presents some possible experimental tests to distinguish Weber's force
from Lorentz's force with great clarity and giving orders of magnitude.

I recommend strongly the careful reading of this book which can initiate a new revolution in
electrodynamics. It has many new ideas and insights, is full of historical information, is rich in modern
experimental and theoretical references. And above all, is non dogmatic, presenting the concepts for
the reflection of the readers in clear form and inspiring contents.

Andre Koch Torres Assis
Institute of Physics
State University of Campinas
13083-970 Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Email: assis@ifi.unicamp.br
Homepage: http://www.ifi.unicamp.br/~assis

Este é um excelente livro para quem quer aprender sobre sistemas de proteção de sistemas elétricos de potência. O conteúdo teórico e prático do livro é muito bom para proficionais e estudantes interessados em aprofundar seus conhecimentos neste assunto.

As an inorganic chemist who has worked with nanoparticles for a decade, but an initiate to the field of semiconductor quantum dots (QD), I found this book to be very useful. It is clearly written so that even the theoretical physics discussions are comprehensible to a non-physicist. It is a good introduction to this field and should be readily available to any researcher contemplating working with QD. The references are fairly current with many from 1996 and 1997.

After a brief exposition into the history of work with quantum wells, quantum wires and QD, Chapters 3-4 provide a good introduction to the field by describing the theoretical properties of few-many electron systems. The balance of the theoretical discussions throughout the book were made much clearer by appropriate graphs that illustrated the physical phenomenon under discussion.

Chapters 5 and 6 dealing with optical transitions are of greatest importance to many researchers interested in the most distinctive properties of QD. These properties are the variation of absorption and fluorescence (photoluminescence) with QD dimensions. The book successfully integrates theory with physical measurements of these phenomenon.

Short comings:

There was no discussion of chemical syntheses of nanocolloidal QD. The examples in the book are primarily drawn from QD structures grown on semiconductor or insulator (e.g., glass) substrates by such techniques as molecular beam epitaxy, lithography, MOCVD and self-assembly. The current explosion in research on QD is due to the ready syntheses of CORE-SHELL nanocolloid QD. Researchers contemplating working with nanocolloid QD need to look elsewhere.

This book also needs a comparison of semiconductor QD optical transitions with similar phenomenon observed in metallic nanoparticle systems such as Au and Pt nanostuctures (colloids and wires) and Ag colloids (resonance light scattering).

These omissions do not detract from this small, useful book.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants an introduction to nonequilibrium Green function techniques. It is much more readible and up-to-date than Kadanoff and Baym's "Quantum Statistical Mechanics".

To be honest, I am trying to learn formal QED, and this text is 'feeding' well. Heitler comes up with the goods..you feel you have actually covered some topic-(rather than some 'lite' or cryptic version). Having said that modern criticisms would be the usage of 'old' vector operations notation (minor taste criticism-you get used to the use of '[ , ]' for vector products for example); and also omission of 'Feynman diagrams'. However the additional material (to the 1934 edition) published in this reprinted 1954 edition gives reference to Feynman and Schwingers work prior to this date.

For THE treatment of quantum bremsstrahlung theory (first approximation), here is the most oft quoted reference (with maybe an option on Kramers 1923 'Bohrian' quantum paper)and arguably the most relevant. A must if only for this. Like most books written around this time in Dovers catalogue, it is well written, readable, and precise in the analysis- skipping math steps where truly reasonable. A gold mine for those of us trying to get to grips with the subject of the title.

As we move into the 21st century I suspect this book will no longer be out of print. Pooh-poohed by the scientific establishment, Baron von Reichenbach's painstaking research on the forces of Magnetism, Electricity, Heat, Light, Crystallization, and Chee reveal a hitherto still largely unidentified force in nature. The few scientists who took the trouble to go through his carefully documented experiments found they were able to replicate the results.

His initial research into the various forces mentioned in the title was conducted with subjects who were in a poor state of health. This rendered them more sensitive to the phenomena they reported. Later, Von Reichenbach was able to work with healthy people as well. He found that many were just as sensitive to the phenomena and that this was more widespread than he had thought.

This is more a textbook for the serious student of unexplained forces in nature (rather than a scintillating Harry Potter-type read) and, with a little application, the open minded could find that the insight to be gained from this research may be invaluable in the years to come.