This post is for all the people (in particular physics guys, in general anyone) who felt seriously underwhelmed by their respective introductory courses in Electrical Engineering. (It is also for the people who felt underwhelmed by their second, third, fourth ...... courses in Electrical Engineering.)
"An electrical engineering person is a strange person."
- myself
(Note the quote does not say an Electrical Engineer, as that would disqualify many professors, which would defeat the very purpose of this post)
It is not as if I had a pre-conceived notion that the Electrical Engineering department was taboo. I entered the course perfectly willing to learn. (mistake one) The first few days were trivial. In fact the whole course was trivial in the sense that it is actually a compendium of formulae with rules for applying them. From now, when I mean trivial, I use the word in the sense that it is comprehensible at first sight to a rational thinking person. [note the clause]
Then the non-trivial parts of the course started popping up. Some arguments in the subject bore a distinct and nasty resemblance to some in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy".
Electrical Engineering: The output of the op-amp (operational amplifier) is A(Vid) where A is very very large. The output is finite: Therefore, the Vid (input voltage) is zero.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: The population of the universe is finite. There are an infinite number of worlds in the universe. The average number of people per world is, therefore zero. Therefore, the number of people in the universe is also zero.
Though there is a distinct difference in the two arguments, one cannot help but wonder as to how a whole "science" can be based on millions of these assuptions, some contradictory, some based on another, which is based on this one (the classic circle), and some there just for the kick.
Though I understand that the point of Electrical Engineering is not to develop a rigorous theory for this sort of thing, their way of thinking is like a dangerous first step on the rapid path to mental oblivion. When I asked the following question of one of the profs :
"When you solve a diode circuit, you assume something about the state of each diode and call the answer right if you get a circuit satisfying Kirchoff's laws etc and the diode characteristics. Why cant multiple solutions exist?"
The reply:
Blink, Blink. "This is an electrical circuit. Put an input, you will get an output. period."
Later I found that there is a fascinating branch of electrical engineering (non-linear circuit analysis) which is really concerned with the existence and uniqueness of a solution. I do not fault Electrical Engineering (pretty strange thing to say since Ive been panning it all along). It is intrinsically good. Somewhere down the line, the rot has set in. I am now seeing the pitiful echoes of a symphony, which, to me sound like the twang of a broken guitar string.
By the way, in our place, most electrical engineering students are very enthusuastic about "summer projects". If that doesn't ring a bell, read the previous post.
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7 comments:
Ah! Finally I land up at a blog you yourself write. Casual searches only yielded results where in it inevitably had to be someone else chipping you in.
You've started recently, so thats not very strange I guess.
PS: Sorry for putting up a comment which is completely irrelevant to your post.
PS2: You wouldn't recognise me with my blogger identity (I somehow feel, you wouldnt even otherwise). You (hopefully) know me by the name Varun Raj.
PS3: It has been a long time since your last post, looks like you're very busy. hope to see you soon.
nice post; gave me a lot of confidence ahead of my introductory course in elec engg next sem (candyman= basu)
i asked the same question (uniqueness of solutions in batti) when i did esc whatever. the way these courses are taught is quite pathetic :-(
What can I say! Accurate!
I took EE here because I was interested in Electromagnetic Theory that I studied in High School. In Esc 102 class I got hundreds of doubts of the kind you mention.Where I thought that the instructor was obviously committing a fraud while jumping from arguments. All my friends were able to "pick up" what was taught. I couldn't reconcile myself to this odd and stupid way of doing things where you assume and assume and the only reassurance you have is that somewhere it must have worked somehow..kinds looks scary like a religion where you just have to believe.
The further courses in EE here are not very different either.Like The Matrix sequels, the assumptions go on piling up and no explanation ever comes.
I eventually begun to think that I didn't have that knack of thinking like an engineer, hence I couldn't "understand" Esc 102 well...I stay with that tag still.
For all those guys whose choice for EE here is guided by some kind of inclination towards physics, the department here is a horrible thing, that they realise only after coming here..
What you and pravesh have written is very true. Electrical engineering is neither physics nor mathematics.
A bunch of device models to be crammed without questioning. A truck load of transform formulae to be remembered.
Profs further take advantage of the confusion by appealing to the "fact" that Quantum Mechanics, Fourier Analysis are not to be learnt by engineers.
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