Applied electronics. Electr. Eng. Staff of the M. S. T. J. Wiley and Sons. N. J. 1945.
Applied Electronics, 1945, p. 772.

The present book was written by a group of staff members of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) as the first—basic—course for electrical-engineering students, who in the future may specialize in various fields of electrical engineering, power engineering, communications, measurements, etc. In his preface to this book K. Compton indicates that this qualified collective of authors set itself the goal of writing a series of textbooks which, in the breadth and depth of their coverage of the material, the quality of presentation, etc., would be at such a high level as is unattainable for individual authors.

As is evident from the table of contents, the present book consists essentially of two parts: in the first part, in 5 chapters, the physical phenomena in electronic devices are examined, while in the second part, in 7 chapters, their applications are considered. At the end of each chapter a number of problems is given, and at the end of the book there is a list of the principal monographs. Not considering myself sufficiently competent in questions concerning the application of electronic devices, I shall confine myself here only to the first part of the book, devoted to physical electronics.

which, according to the American standard, is “that branch of science and engineering which deals with the conduction of electricity through gases and vacuum,” i.e., a very broad and important field.

Chapter I of the book (pp. 1–61) is devoted to questions of electron ballistics. Here the rectilinear motion of electrons in an electric field and elements of electrical electron optics are treated in considerable detail, but questions of motion in a magnetic field and of magnetic electron optics are treated very briefly. Unfortunately, the short magnetic lens, the electron microscope, methods of focusing and analyzing electron and ion beams, etc., are entirely absent.

Chapter II (pp. 62–113) is devoted to electron emission from metals. Here, in essentially qualitative terms, electrons in a metal, thermionic emission from various cathodes, and, very briefly, photo-, auto-, and secondary emission are considered. The exposition is conducted at a very elementary, descriptive level and, in particular, the specific properties of modern efficient cathodes are again not emphasized.

Chapter III (pp. 114–153) is devoted to current flow through vacuum, gases, and vapors. The \(3/2\) power equation is considered, and, very elementarily, questions of electron motion in a gas, then breakdown, Townsend, glow, and arc discharges. It is scarcely likely that the reader will be satisfied by the superficial completeness of the exposition of gas discharge if, for example, less than two pages without a single figure are devoted to the arc.

Chapter IV (pp. 154–204) is devoted to vacuum electron tubes, where the diode, triode, tetrode, pentode, and short-wave tubes are considered. Even in this chapter, which is one of the most important for the whole book as a whole, the exposition of these questions has the ordinary, standard character found in any other average book on electron tubes. Unfortunately, one must note the absence of a number of interesting innovations, in particular those connected with the modern application of electron-optical methods.

Finally, Chapter V (pp. 205–246) is devoted to gas-discharge devices, namely: the gasotron, mercury rectifier, ignitron, and, in somewhat greater detail, the thyratron. Here too the exposition is conducted at a rather elementary level; thus, for example, the elements of the theory of plasma and the discharge sheath are entirely omitted.

Summing up the results of all that has been set forth, one may say that the authors’ plan clearly did not succeed: what resulted is an ordinary, average book on certain questions of electronics, far from comprehensive and not original, without any “highlight” that one might have expected judging by the preface. Therefore the physical part of this book, as a rule, cannot serve as an instructive model either from the standpoint of scientific originality or from that of pedagogical presentation capable of enriching our literature on this subject.

N. D. Morgulis