"it is "dumbed down" so as "
Do you think that all encyclopedias are wrong in all country? )))) Simple induction coils are not transformers, as you think, and that your shorter primitive simplistic definition sounds as a "dumbed down" definition . Do you know what the tranformer means? It is a latin word. Itself the meaning of the word exclude that devices without changing/converting the voltage are trans-form-ers.   
"And a couple more texts are required if you study quantum theory related to those subjects" Quantum theory started by a German Max Planck, but nobody knew its real mathematical background therefore it remained just a semi-science, until a Hungarian János Neumann made it. Lot of famous scientist of the era tried to made the mathematical background of the Q.theory but its proved to difficult for them. Neumann redefinied the definitions, he pointed out serials of former serious errors. He made Q. theory to a calculable science which made it a practicable science for industry. He invented the famous game theory and designed the world-famous ENIAC digital computer too.(ENIAC, short for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer,[1][2] was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems.[3] ENIAC was designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the U.S. Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory, but its first use was in calculations for the hydrogen bomb. When ENIAC was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a "Giant Brain". It boasted speeds one thousand times faster than electro-mechanical machines, a leap in computing power that no single machine has since matched. This mathematical power, coupled with general-purpose programmability, excited scientists and industrialists.) Neumann was the main mathematican in Manhattan Project. Other famous Hungarian was Jenő Wigner often reffered as the father of quantum mechanics. Other famous Hungarian: Leó Szilárd his invention changed the basis of nuclear science:  he invented the nuclear chain reaction and invented the nuclear reactor (and he invented with Wigner the first nuclear power station) as well as the first Particle accelerator. Therefore the nuclear physics became a practicable/utilizable science for mankind. As the inventor nuclear chain reaction, he realised foremost the atomic-bomb, he made the basic "Cutaway Drawing" of the first atomic bomb. He asked Albert Einstein to write letter to president Roosevelt for the realization of a concrete nuclear Bomb. In Manhattan project dosens of scientist and hundreds of engineers worked for the realization of Szilárd's idea: a working atomic bomb from 1939-1944. An other Hungarian Ede Teller invented the H-bomb. And it is just particle quantum / nuclear physics. It is just a branch of physics.  We had dosens of similar great scientists in other branchs of the physics and natural sciences.
The exaggeratedly anglocentric Rico have never heard about these scientists. The expert historians of natural sciences are always shocked about great number of Hungarian scientists, how is it possible for such a little country.

What said the Italian Enrico Fermi about Hungarians (the Marthians):  http://www.setileague.org/askdr/hungary.htm