The goal of this workbook is to provide a large number of problems and exercises in the area of DC electrical circuits to supplement or replace the exercises found in textbooks.
The book is split into several sections, each with an overview and review of the basic concepts and issues addressed in that section. These are followed by the exercises which are generally divided into four major types: analysis, design, challenge and simulation. Many SPICE-based circuit simulators are available, both free and commercial, that can be used with this workbook. The answers to most odd-numbered exercises can be found in the Appendix. A table of standard resistor sizes is also in the Appendix, which is useful for real-world design problems.
Excerpt:
A key element of any measurement or derived value is the resulting resolution. Resolution refers to the finest change or variation that can be discerned by a measurement system. For digital measurement systems, this is typically the last or lowest level digit displayed. For example, a bathroom scale may show weights in whole pounds. Thus, one pound would be the resolution of the measurement. Even if the scale was otherwise perfectly accurate, we could not be assured of a person's weight to within better than one pound using this scale as there is no way of indicating fractions of a pound.
Related to resolution is a value's number of significant digits. Significant digits can be thought of as representing potential percentage accuracy in measurement or computation. Continuing with the bathroom scale example, consider what happens when weighing a 156 pound adult versus a small child of 23 pounds. As the scale only resolves to one pound, that presents us with an uncertainty of one pound out of 156 for the adult, but a much larger uncertainty of one pound out of 23 for the child. The 156 pound measurement has three significant digits (i.e., units, tens and hundreds) while the 23 pound measurement has but two significant digits (units and tens).
In general, leading and trailing zeroes are not considered significant. For example, the value 173.58 has five significant digits while the value .00143 has only three significant digits as does .000000143. Similarly, if we compute the value 63/3.0, we arrive at 21, with two significant digits. If your calculator shows 21.0 or 21.00, those extra trailing zeroes do not increase accuracy and are not considered significant. An exception to this rule is when measuring values in the laboratory. If a high resolution voltmeter indicates a value of, say, 120.0 millivolts, those last two zeroes are considered significant in that they reflect the resolution of the measurement (i.e, the meter is capable of reading down to tenths of millivolts).
When performing calculations, the results will generally be no more accurate than the accuracy of the initial measurements. Consequently, it is senseless to divide two measured values obtained with three significant digits and report the result with ten significant digits, even if that's what shows up on the calculator. For these sorts of calculations, you can't expect the result to be any better than the “weakest link” in terms of resolution and resulting significant digits