Maths & other areas to study up - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: logictom
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 01, 2010, 10:18:01 pm
content: This summer I'm going to be brushing on my maths and was after some advice from anyone that's employed as an electronic engineer or similar.I'll be brushing up on what I've been taught but was wondering how much of it will actually be useful and be used regularly.A lot of what we have been taught has never been used in anything other than the maths course, I understand it's useful to know this extra 'stuff' but I would like to concentrate on what will be the most useful down the line. Also if there are any areas that perhaps aren't usually taught that maybe useful?I hope to get a job in designing embedded systems and what to present a strong set of skills so I'm interested in any advise as to which other areas I could look into studying over summer.I know these are very general questions but perhaps someone can offer some advise?

author: mkissin
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 01, 2010, 10:42:56 pm
content: Sorry, I can't advise on embedded systems directly, but I can tell you that as a power electronics engineer I regularly use every single bit of maths that I was ever taught.Some of it isn't used directly. For example, it's rare that I have to actually go through the rigor of taking the Fourier transform of a signal, but it's very important to be able to guess basically what the answer would be if I was to do it. It will help hugely in your debugging to know that the high-frequency content of a square wave is not related to the actual frequency of the waveform itself, but instead to the slew rate of the edges.The more you know (about everything), the better you will be as an engineer.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 01, 2010, 11:44:02 pm
content: It's hard to say, as individual areas of electronics can differ greatly. But I can say that in my 20 years, I've had to calculate an actual integral exactly zero times as an example. Same with Fourier transforms and other advanced stuff. Maxwells's stuff - forget it.That being said, the concepts are important and I've had to use them many times.Day to day math for most engineers is generally little more than ohms law and other basic formula.mkissin mentioned power electronics, and that's probably one area that would be different and require more math.As for embedded systems, the math should be very minimal. But it would not be uncommon to have to implement an FFT routine for example. But rarely would you code it from first principles for example, you'd just use a pre-written routines.So generally speaking, all that first principle stuff you'll rarely if ever use, but knowing what to expect and the concepts are important.Dave.

author: logictom
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 02, 2010, 04:45:29 pm
content: Quote from: mkissin on May 01, 2010, 10:42:56 pmCouldn't agree more.Quote from: EEVblog on May 01, 2010, 11:44:02 pmThanks for the info, there are plenty of areas I will be reading up on to re-familiarise myself.How important is it to know and be able to use the different software packages, things like Labview. We have it at uni and there are 101 adverts for it everywhere but we haven't actually used it, would it be worth familiarising myself with different packages like Labview?Thanks for the advise

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 06, 2010, 01:59:42 pm
content: Quote from: logictom on May 02, 2010, 04:45:29 pmLabview is more specific to test and production system engineering and the like, but handy to know.Matlab is another biggie that's common for say signal analysis and processing.And a flavor of SPICE, like LTspice is commonly used.Those along with a PCB/Schematic package like say Altium Designer are basic tools used in the trade.Dave.

author: RayJones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2010, 09:06:11 pm
content: I got away with the usual trig etc for the first decade or so of my career.Then one day it became necessary to perform some real DSP work, and out of the woodwork returned Complex mathematics (i^2 = -1) (or j^2 for electronics)It all really depends on where your career leads.I still have no idea on how FFT's work other than they convert your nice regular time domain samples into the frequency domain, each point being the contribution of a band of frequencies.And if you don't window your data, you usually get high level wideband noise in the spectra. This is due to a start/end discontinuity being recognised as a sharp impulse.As for the other really messy stuff like Z transforms, Laplace transforms etc I give up, too long ago.

author: tecman
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2010, 10:36:26 pm
content: I agree that working with more advanced math is extremely rare. Most of my "high math" in the last 35 years is using trig. What is key, however, is having been educated in the math so that you understand what it means. For example what is an integral, differential, etc and how do they apply to real world problems. This also frequently involves understanding how these math principals apply to the work you do.Paul

author: RayJones
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2010, 11:10:26 pm
content: I don't think you can discount mathematics, and knowledge of higher forms will never hinder your progress.The problem is there is never a "pure" electronics job.It is more so that electronics is required to support a specific technology, and that technology may take you places that you wished you had paid more attention to mathematics.And in these times, and most definitely the future, your "electronics" engineer will be more and more involved in the implementation of said technology via the usage/writing of firmware of some form or another. To do so effectively you must know when and how you can apply the correct mathematics.

author: kc1980
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2010, 08:28:07 am
content: Here is some engineering theory GOLD!! This RF engineer spent quite a bit of time creating interactive lessons to teach things like decibels, trig, transmission lines, convolution, fourier, etc. Some of it is probably way too theoretical for the vast majority of EE fields, but it still doesn't hurt to learn the concepts. Have fun!!!http://www.fourier-series.com/

author: logictom
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 10, 2010, 11:21:42 am
content: Thanks for the responses! Maths will be sticking on my list of things to do over the summer along with an ever growing number of things to do and buildThanks for the link kc1980, had a quick browse and looks pretty good, I always find it helps reinforce the ideas when you hear them explained in different ways.