Simulation Books

The Mathematica Guidebooks suite consists of 4 thick awesome tomes-Programming, Graphics, Numerics and Symbolics- on the Mathematica software and its usage. The GUI frontend is not covered. The author is an acknowledged expert at Wolfram Research and the set of books is the result of his extensive usage and experimentation with the software. To use these books effectively, you must be knowledgeable in Mathematica as well as other areas like physics and computer science. For a start, you should read (not browse) The Mathematica Book by Stephen Wolfram (the creator of the software) from cover to cover. The DVD packaged with any of the GuideBooks contains the whole suite. The amazing graphics alone is worth the price. All programming code is on view. Bear in mind that the books were written before Mathematica 6 was released. So not everything about Mathematica is in these GuideBooks. I recommend that you check out Mathematica 6-especially the Manipulate command.

Trott's 4 book set is an amazing achievement. The Programming volume is the most generally useful, and Trott suggests reading The Mathematica Book (by Wolfram) through, cover to cover, and then reading Trott's own books in the order Programming, Graphics, Numerics, Symbolics. So, start with Programming when reading Trott. I think following these instructions would be the best way to start from zero and master Mathematica.

It is hard to even consider all the information in here. I like areas others have discussed, like the Lambda calculus and the Metamathematica discussions. I also like that all 4 of the books are included, formatted as Mathematica Notebooks, on the DVD. The DVD that comes with any one volume contains that volume's notebooks already evaluated, and the other 3 volumes' notebooks unevaluated, and an unevaluated copy of that volume's notebooks, and the Table of Contents and Index and other infrastructural notebooks. So, while the hardcopy is very nice to have, I've also hunted around in the other volumes with great benefit.

It really makes no sense to compare these with Ruskeepaa's Mathematica Navigator, which is a nice example of the several books that help get one started with Mathematica. Trott is aiming at a whole different level. His explanations are more insightful, more complete. He discusses more topics.

Trott goes well beyond Wolfram's book. To quote him, "The four GuideBooks contain about 25,000 Mathematica inputs, representing more than 70,000 lines of commented Mathematica code. (For the reader already familiar with Mathematica, here is a more precise measure: The LeafCount of all inputs would be about 800,000 when collected in a list.) The GuideBooks also have more than 4,000 graphics, 100 animations, 8,000 references, and 1,000 exercises. More than 10,000 hyperlinked index entries and hundreds of hyperlinks from the overview sections connect all parts in a convenient way. The evaluated notebooks of all four volumes have a cumulative file size of about 10 GB."

Mathematica is a huge and powerful tool. As Mathematica is to other technical computing tools, Trott's set is to other Mathematica books.

Absolutely terrible book. The author fails to explain simple things simply and logically. The author should read "mathematica for Scientist and Engineers" by Thomas Bahder or "Mathematica Navigator" by Ruskeepaa to see how one should write a book.

Michael is a world authority on Mathematica. His deep insight, fresh perspectives and Herculean writing have produced a singular volume. It is impossible to turn the pages without a sense of amazement. If you want to appreciate the power and beauty of Mathematica, there is no better choice.

Here we see Mathematica as used by a master. The instruction is top notch, the examples are superlative, the topics are fascinating.

I think the customer rating system shows a blemish in allowing someone to rate this book as a poor introduction. It is a guidebook, a survey of capabilities, and as such is superlative example.

Michael Trott's skill, knowledge and enthusiasm regarding the use of
Mathematica in scientific research is extraordinarily impressive, as I
have found to my considerable
benefit from some extended professional contact.
His infectious passion is manifested very strongly in this Guidebook
(devoted to programming, with the subsequent three volumes --- already
available --- being
concerned with the topics of graphics, symbolics and numerics).
Chapter 1 ("Introduction to Mathematica")
alone contains close to twelve hundred
references to the scientific literature (mostly physics, mathematics
and engineering
in nature), pertaining to one application or another --- many of an
engaging/intriguing nature.
Each chapter includes a set of exercises and a detailed solution
proposal for each exercise.

It certainly behooves each reader to peruse the Table of Contents and the
Index to find the topics of most interest to him or her. Much valuable time
for the computer practitioner
can certainly be spent with simple browsing of this impressive work of
devotion and erudition.
Desirably, some of the virtuosity in the use of Mathematica, abundantly
exhibited here by Trott, can be acquired by the reader.

I have been using blender for a while now and enjoyed his other book about character animation, but I was unable to get any of the 5 tutorials that I tried in this book to work at all. Must be for Advance users only I guess.

I just bought the book and will start learning it immediately. The book is amazing in its illustrations and quality. I had a complaint about another book by Tony Mullen. He responded to my complain in a matter of hours. I will let more experienced reviewers evaluate the book, but I will highly recommend any author who cares so much for his customers.

I must say, I'm biased... I started liking this book the first time I read the title! The book is very impressive, it is full-color, lots of images, and the chapters are nice and modular so you can jump to the section the topic you're interested in. Tony Mullen did a great job in making the complex straightforward. The tasks in the chapters are clearly written in step-by-step style. He gets right to the point of the chapter and has you work through the material. Another nice touch is seeing pics and blurbs on various Blender artists/developers.

I ordered this book without much hesitation, once I discovered Tony was writing it. Having read his past book "Introducing Character Animation with Blender", I ordered this one without thinking twice. Now that this book is in my hands, I can't regret for my choice. The overall quality of the publication is impressive. Not only for the contents but also for the technical production: fine paper with color quality images. It's not common these days. The book is composed of 400 pages (7 chapters) plus an appendix and they are:

Chapter 1 - Re-creating the World: An overview
This chapter describes those tools and techniques that are not well explained elsewhere by the Blender literature. It covers topics like material creation with nodes, transparency, subsurface scattering, sky maps (sphere maps and angular maps) and those tools that can be used to fake physics, when accurate simulations are not necessary at all but you still need a "quick and dirty" method to achieve an effect efficiently and with sufficient speed (an example: water simulation with surface tension displacement or cloth simulation using a displacement modifier). Obviously, these techniques are useful for everyone involved using Blender. No doubt. Much appreciated.

Chapter 2 - The Nitty-Gritty on particles.
The first thing I thought after reading this chapter was:"WOW". *ALL* the latest development on Blender particles is covered here: emitters, reactors, positioning particles on a grid, chained physics systems, various types of visualizations, force fields (harmonic, magnetic, vortex, spherical, wind, etc.)
You will be guided through the creation of a convincing fire material using clouds and stencils textures! All is explained gradually and with great style. Highly informative.

Chapter 3 - Getting flexible with Soft Bodies and Cloth.
As you can expect, all that has been developed is covered here: baking, how to animate a spring, force fields and collision, using curves with softbodies (it will teach you how to animate a chain using an empty), stress maps, how to produce a fantastic cube of gelatin using lattices, simulating clothes. It will even explain how to use the demolition plugin to produce a window breaking in a spiderweb pattern!

Chapter 4 - Hair Essentials: The Long and Short of Strand Particles.
How to produce hair, fur and grass. After covering the basics, this chapter will guide you through the creation of an hairstyle on top of a practice head. One of my preferred chapters.

Chapter 5 - Making a Splash with Fluids.
One of the most interesting part of Blender: the fluid simulator. All is covered here: domains, resolution, inflow, outflow, fluid object intersection, kinematic viscosity, obstacles (considering animation, of course).

Chapter 6 - Bullet Physics and the Blender Game Engine.
One of the less undestood parts of Blender is certainly the game engine. So I was favourably impressed when I have seen an entire chapter dedicated to it. This chapter describes all the tools needed to produce hard bodies simulations, using the game engine and the powerfullness of the Bullet Physics Library. Actors, actuators, IPO curves, rigid body simulations with IPO curves, joints, ragdolls ... This is material that will be probably new to most Blender users.

Chapter 7 - Imitation of Life: Simulating Trees and Plants.
This chapter explores a few tools that can be used for creating trees and vegetation in general, like the L-System, ngPlant and Ivy Generator.

Each chapter is independent, so you don't need to read the book from the first page, with the exception of chapter 4, who strongly depends by the two previous chapters. This book is of course not intended for beginners. This book is completely updated with the latest Blender development and it covers the actual stable release. This is the documentation Blender needs. I highly recommend this book. It is well written, well presented, well structured and, most importantly, it's definitely fun!

I purchased this hoping to learn to use Blender, and open-source program available from blender.org. The book is very well written, very informative, and an excellent reference, but definitely NOT for beginners; the author even says so. If you, like me, are a beginner, either buy this AFTER getting "Character Animation With Blender" or "The Essential Blender," buy it WITH one of those, but if you are serious about learning 3D imaging, animated or not, this is a definitive must for your library.

It's ok but not useful in the course i bought it for

The book arrived with no problems. The book was shipped out 1 or 2 days after the purchase.

another reviewer puts "must for begginer", but please notice it's for "a first-year grads" not for under-grads or sheer novices. i'm a plain novice, and i should say this book is not a tutorial. you need basic exposition on this field. i found "Lee and Miller:CDMA Systems Engineering Handbook" is helpful. the handbook is rather verbose and this MATLAB companion makes a good recapitulation of the handbook.

The is a superb book. My only complaint with this text is that it should have been included with Proakis' Digital Communication book in the first place. You will notice that 90% of the graphs and diagrams are straight from that text.

One of the winning ingredients is that all the Matlab code is written to be understood. Where some texts will write all code to be as optimal as possible, this book actually uses loops where Matlab array operations could have been used (which is not recommended in Matlab due to speed). It actually makes the code very readable and enjoyable. Surprisingly a few of the code snippets have left out the plot and stem commands? This is not too much of a hassle if you understand Matlab well, you can just generate that code yourself. Newcomers to Matlab will probably not be impressed. While the Matlab code is very simple and readable, it is still not for the beginner.

NOTE: This book will not teach you communication systems. This book is written like a Schaums text, where they briefly go over the key points, and then start programming them. If you only have this book and no other one to reference, you will be lost.

If you hate the Proakis Digital Communications text (as I do), you will love this one. This book has all the examples and fills in the missing points of that text. I find it interesting that this book has a co-author. I suspect that Salehi must influence the reign of reason in Proakis since this book is written so much clearer than Digital Communications.

In a nutshell, this book is worth its price. Very happy with this purchase.

An excellent computer approach to almost all aspects of communications in Electrical Engineering, that clarifies topics which are difficult to approach just by dealing with theory.

This book does a really good job at presenting the concepts and methodologies of CAGD in a manner that is easy to learn from. You leave this book with a complete understanding of the how and why of the topics it presents.

The first reviewer complained that complete algorithms are not always given. The book is not meant to be a listing of algorithms to copy. If that's what you're looking for, you should look elsewhere. What this book does is presents the mathmatics and mechanics behind CAGD. It gives enough of the algorithm to start your implementation once you understand the topic. This promotes a fuller understanding of the subject and the theory behind, allowing you to apply the knowledge in domains outside of the subject area.

If you want to learn the basics of CAGD and have a good background in linear algebra and vectors (a must for any graphics programming), I'd highly recommend this book.

This is a great book that delivers exactly what the title says, the "essentials". I used this book for a CAGD class (taught by one of the authors) and found the material very readable, straightforward, and useful. In fact, I found myself returning to this book as a reference in later graduate level coursework in CAGD.

The book attempts to give the reader all the tools that are necessary to get started in CAGD, and I strongly believe it succeeds in doing that. From the very first chapter, which reaches all the way back to descriptions of points and vectors, to the end of the book, which introduces the reader to some of the same methods that are used in Computer Graphic Animation (composite surfaces) and CAD/CAM (NURBS), the book provides just about everything necessary to learn the material.

With the material I learned in this book, I created some very cool looking models...the kind of things that got "ooh's" and "aah's" from my friends, and most of all made me feel like the methods used to create animated films are not beyond me.

To the first reviewer, I'd say go back and re-read the first two chapters that describe points, vectors, lines, and planes. Although if someone isn't comfortable with linear algebra and vector math, then that would make tackling any form of CAGD or graphics difficult. As far as graphics knowledge necessary, the methods in this book can be applied by only knowing how to draw lines on the screen.

It's a great book I'd recommend to anyone interested in CAGD!

This is a great book that delivers exactly what the title says, the "essentials". I used this book for a CAGD class (taught by one of the authors) and found the material very readable, straightforward, and useful. In fact, I found myself returning to this book as a reference in later graduate level coursework in CAGD.

The book attempts to give the reader all the tools that are necessary to get started in CAGD, and I strongly believe it succeeds in doing that. From the very first chapter, which reaches all the way back to descriptions of points and vectors, to the end of the book, which introduces the reader to some of the same methods that are used in Computer Graphic Animation (composite surfaces) and CAD/CAM (NURBS), the book provides just about everything necessary to learn the material.

With the material I learned in this book, I created some very cool looking models...the kind of things that got "ooh's" and "aah's" from my friends, and most of all made me feel like the methods used to create animated films are not beyond me.

To the first reviewer, I'd say go back and re-read the first two chapters that describe points, vectors, lines, and planes. Although if someone isn't comfortable with linear algebra and vector math, then that would make tackling any form of CAGD or graphics difficult. As far as graphics knowledge necessary, the methods in this book can be applied by only knowing how to draw lines on the screen.

It's a great book I'd recommend to anyone interested in CAGD!

This book covers the basics of CAGD. It starts with a brief overview of vectors and some of the mathematics that are essential to understanding the rest of the book, then plunges into the material. The book does a really good job of describing the algorithms from different perspectives. The major algorithms are approached in two ways, one from the way average people could understand how the method of creating curves works, the other from the way the computer generates the curve, mathematically.

The math in the book is not for the beginner. It does require a good exposure to linear algebra and some calculus to understand. There are many examples of calculations to follow along if you have trouble.

The basic concepts of how to create curves using the methods described, anyone could understand.

This book is a really good reference and a pretty good introduction to many of the CAGD concepts. There are a number of errors in the book, but most of them are easy to spot.

I am a Mechanical Engineer with interest in CAD/CAM/CAGD/CAE areas. I have learnt CAGD from different classes at school and by far "The Essentials of CAGD - by Dr. Hansford and Dr. Farin" has been the easiest to understand. It gives you a very compact knowledge of this vast and challenging field. The math is very well laid out and several examples have been solved to explain the fundamentals. The other CAGD books by the same authors give a deeper understanding of CAGD principles. This book is like a bible to designers, people in graphics, finite elements, CAD/CAM, artists, stylists!

It is a very helpful book with many examples and online metarials for Pajek learners.

Social Network Analysis (SNA) has a number of different ways of doing analysis that depend on the point of view one is taking about the data. Different types of analysis make sense to answer different types of questions. For instance, it may be interesting to find paths from node to node, it may be interesting to see how nodes (representing many things: people, organizations, teams, businesses or countries, for instance) cluster together. One might want to see the links between clusters and much more. It can be bewildering to choose the right method and then use software do to the analysis. Since there are so many choices, any software that does SNA will be complex.

Each chapter of this book highlights an important type of analysis and takes the reader through doing the analysis step-by-step using the freeware software package Pajek (Slovenian for "spider"). Pajek allows the user to do a huge range of analysis and visualize it. It can work with large networks. Tho book does not assume knowledge SNA and explains the motives for the types of analysis so that after going through the book the reader has the basic skills to both do SNA and understand the studies that have been done using SNA.

Pajek means spider in Slovenian. Pajek is also a software program for the analysis and visualisation of very large networks; networks with thousands if not millions of vertices. It is a program I use occasionally, however I prefer UCINET and NetMiner 3 , because I find these programs to be easier to use. It is precisely for this reason I bought and read "Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek" by Wouter de Nooy, Andrej Mrvar, and Vladimir Batagelj.

The book is an easy read and nicely complements the manual - in fact I think it could easily replace the manual.
I learnt that Pajek is actually quite a bite easier to use than I first thought. Having played around with Pajek after reading the book I found I could manipulate my datasets in new ways. That said I am not a convert to Pajek.

I did like the examples and the explanations that went with them. Even if I never use Pajek again the book is useful simply because the examples explain rather than describe many of the complexities and pitfalls of network analysis. Read in conjunction with other publications like Wassermann and Faust's "Social Network Analysis. Methods and Applications" the student of network analysis should gain a solid theoretical understanding of network analysis and be able to read network studies more critically. I also found the many exercises in the book most useful. They progressively built and reinforced understanding and competence in Pajek, as well as understanding of network ideas.

So all in all I would give the book a five-star rating - five stars for readability and five stars for the learning by doing approach. It has a place on the bookshelf of even serious student of network analysis.

Regards, Graham

It does not allow paid customer to read it in another computer or print a hard copy. To be exact, it allows paid customer to print 5 pages every 28 days. The book has more than 300 pages, so go figure how long it takes to print your book. The purpose of buying a manual is to learn to use the software while reading it. How do you expect your customer to use the software when he is reading the book on the same computer? And this is hurting the eyes! This is damaging Amazon's reputation too!

This book comes so highly recommended because it lowers all the barriers for the student. The text is easily absorbed, the software is free, and the datasets are there. Many guides on Social Network Analysis (SNA) seem like they are written for someone who already knows how to do SNA. The original Pajek manual is one example (Pajek is pronounced pai-yak). This book is like the missing manual. It guides the novice carefully through the analysis process. The free software, Pajek, is one of the best Social Network programs currently. Although Pajek was initially just for visualizations of large networks, and it still only has a subset of the UCInet functions, the algorithms are fast and plentiful. The book and software should keep a student busy until they add more programmatic SNA tools to their toolkit (e.g. R-project sna).

This is a good book, I have been reading it, so far I enjoy it. compared with other book on the same topic, this book is worth buying.

This is a very good book for classes and suitable for textbook. I recomend this book for who is the new in the probability. The book is readable, clear explaination and MATLAB examples are understandable.

N.A.S.

you will get a solid understanding of each topic/chapter title. Not only engineering but also math students should be trained in the spirit of this book. Each chapter culminates in a real world application which is indeed interesting, and not completely trivial. Few books teach the theory but also bring you to the level where you can apply this theory to problems. However, there is a drawback, in my opinion; since the book is supposed to address grad students some mathematical sophistication could be assumed so as to achieve a more concise presentation. I don't blame the author for extreme clarity of course, but usually you want to get to the interesting parts of any subject at a much higher pace. At some points one could say the book is a bit verbose. Overall, it is almost excellent taking into account its target-group (mostly ece students) and the material it deals with (elementary applied probability).

It's a great book for probability. Explain the abstract concept in an easy way. You will find out that you go through all those difficulties just by following the author. I got full point in my first quiz which was never the case for my math courses.

Here's what you need to know about this book:

1. Don't be confused about the title. By "intuitive" he means he's not going into theoretical measure theory stuff. The material here is standard material, found on many books.
2. The explanations are very clear, doesn't hold back on formalism (to the extent it's possible to be formal - meaning, he's not sloppy about his presentation), and are followed or preceded by real world examples.
3. You get to use Matlab. That is, you learn the basics of using a computer for problems that are aproximate to real world problems.
4. But just because he uses Matlab doesn't mean you don't have a lot (a lot) of traditional excercises. The computer learning is not necessary, it's a "bonus".
5. This book has over 800 pages, and has many illustrations that help a lot in understanding!
6. Later chapters go into more advanced stuff you probably won't see in your first course in probability.

So, all in all, this is an excellent purchase. The author is very talented in explaining, chooses very good examples and additionally, you get to put this stuff your learning to practice using a computer. I think all these factors make the book stand out and introduce probability in a modern way. If you're having difficulty with other shorter texts (as I was) and if you've got an itch to scratch (wants to use your computer to simulate some stuff and do some problems), I think you'll enjoy and benefit quite a lot from this book. Maybe some other books are a little more demanding on math (e.g. Ross), but it's no use if you cant' understand or if you want to become more proficient in the use of the computer for the modelling of probability problems. The real world problems will appeal more to engineering/applied math/comp sci students than other (e.g., biology students).

The criticism I have is that I would have prefered if it had used the free/open source R language/environment (but I guess since the author comes from Electrical Engineering, Matlab makes more sense). Also, I would like to have a solutions manual for *all* the exercises that's not only for teachers (this American infantile treatment of students bothers me). I would have liked more "mathy" examples such as those Ross has ("harder" examples).

I really enjoyed this book because it shows that a high level language such as Smalltalk can efficiently model a complex domain like numerical methods. Besset presents a conceptual framework where the concepts are extended and reused, showing the power of OO programming. I also liked the structure of examples followed by a formal foundation, implementation, and implementation discussion.

As a mathematically oriented programmer I found no interesting ideas in this book. The content and treatment of the material is a bit too simplistic and, when viewed as an introduction, it looks unattractive.

Also, as a Smalltalk programmer, I was disappointed with the way algorithms are implemented. The author makes no attempt to take advantage of the wonderful expressiveness of the Smalltalk language. Classes and methods have been given awkward names; the source code is not elegant; basic objects such as matrices and polynomials are insufficiently modeled and treated as mere data structures; algorithms are not viewed as objects but as conventional procedures. Because of the flatness of the approach the resulting programming style is ugly when compared to Smalltalk standards. The eloquence and richness of pure object orientation is not achieved or suggested. SUnit tests, which would have fitted perfectly in all chapters, have been ignored everywhere.

I really enjoyed this book because it shows that a high level language such as Smalltalk can efficiently model a complex domain like numerical methods. Besset presents a conceptual framework where the concepts are extended and reused, showing the power of OO programming. I also liked the structure of examples followed by a formal foundation, implementation, and implementation discussion.

The author is clearly very familiar with the theory and practice of numerical computations in OO languages. For me, the main contributions of the book are an expert formulation of some of the basic numerical techniques and concepts in OO terms (a subject rarely approached in the numerous existing books on OO technology), and examples that can be followed to implement other NM techniques and concepts.

The inclusion of very readable Smalltalk and Java source code is very useful.

For use in a course, I would like to see the material complemented by exercises.

Dr. Besset has written an uncommonly great book where he has given us important tools while teaching object-oriented analysis and design. Having both Smalltalk and Java code included is a gift. As a smalltalker, I greatly appreciate the inclusion of the Smalltalk code. The book is well organized, very readable and provides the basis for individuals to extend the classes provides as well as build applications with the included code. The code also provides solid examples of object-oriented programming style that will aid the newer programmers in developing effective use of both Java and Smalltalk.

This book is loaded with tips and strategies for the new user. Its taught me how to manage a city with full potential and confidence. If you want to succede in SimCity get this book

I bought this book because when ever I would try to start a city I would go into debt and then have to start a new city.This book really helped me.It gave me tips and some new ideas.This book is worth buying

This book would be an useful companion to beginners of the game, but it's not much use to experienced players who already know how to build large, happy cities. I was hoping to find more detailed technical information on, for example, exactly what effect various measures have on property value or crime, etc. - in short, for "charts, graphs, and numbers" - and I was utterly disappointed. This book provides hardly any more technical info than the manual, and includes much info that is redundant (e.g. every time a zone or item is described, the authors twll you how to connect it to the power grid. duh). On the positive side, it did provide me a few ideas for experimenting (especially with zones) which were fruitful. A good companion for beginners confused by the game's mechanics, but just not worth the money otherwise.

This book is the second best SimCity 2000 book I've ever read, but its true value shines only in the face of a beginner. This book is one of the few that can send a point with words and pictures instead of graphs, tables, and labels that are incomprehensible to a poor beginner who hardly knows what 'SC2K' stands for. It is like a dog whistle- only the lower life forms (mainly dogs) can hear and obey it easily. This works for experience- newbies canactually understand the material. If you're an experienced player, you can still get some stuff out of it, but there are much better books with graphs, hexadecimals, tables, and the like to portray superior knowledge unnecessary for building a small, self-satisfying (if you're a beginner) city to cherish through rain and through sunshine, through thick and through thin, for richer and for poorer... anyway, it's a good book. To be brief... BUY IT! BUY IT! BUY IT! BUY IT NOW!

My kids like this book, I like this book, you'll like this book. It's full of insight and strategies and written with enough wit to make it real fun. Can't recommend it highly enough.

I had to read this book for a report for school. Otherwise, I would have never picked it up. It took me a long time to get through the book, because I found it to be quite technical. However, it was fascinating to find out what these people went through. It's scary to think that there actually was a comittee that was set up in 1914 with the sole purpose of irradicating the mentally retarded from this world!!

After working in this field for ten years, I finally found something that gives me a history of what has happened to those that came before me and I am making it required reading for my staff.

I have been teaching classes on the history of residential facilities in America for several years. This book brings a new light to me, and to all of us who work for people with disabilities.

James Trent has written an excellent comprehensive history of mental retardation in the U.S. Readers will also find pertinent photographs, and a full bibiography. This volume is a resource for students, human-services professionals, and historians. I highly recommend it.

I spent a good deal of time in libraries looking for information that was ALL CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK. Trent does an amazing job of piecing together a social/medical history of mental retardation. No medical book, no first person type accounts, no histories of institutionalization touched this book. This book draws from all the different disciplines to present a complete picture (as good history books do). It is highly readable and engaging. It's academic and rigorous yet entertaining. I recommend this book wholeheartedly.

This is a so so book on device physics, I think that there are better ones out there, but it is easy to follow and the problem sets are okay.

Casey wrote a two part Academic Press book with Panish on heterostructure lasers around 1980; he has, however, resisted the temptation to talk much about optoelectronics and has produced a balanced basic book comparable to Muller/Kamins, perhaps on a slighty lower level in terms of details of the Si devices but on a higher level in terms of III-V devices and general semiconductor physics. I find it much more readable. Where the text excels is in the insight he brings to the presentation of basic semiconductor physics in areas such as radiative and Auger recombination, or even in insuring that the correct intrinsic carrier concentration for Si is used (1e10 cm-3 at 300K, which is a substantial change from the earlier "standard" 1.5e10 value used in books by Sze and Grove by generations of earlier students), or in the discussion of a model of surface recombination currents in p-n junctions, although I wish more of a detailed derivation of the model was presented in this text, as opposed to an outline. He does do a good job on reviewing SPICE models for common devices. On the down side, I thought the discussions on HEMTS was very light, noise in general is not covered, and he could have talked a little about LEDS, lasers, and microwave devices. On the other hand, the basics are well covered (except for noise).

I've used several semiconductor physics texts in undergraduate and graduate coursework, including Streetman, Sze, and Casey. If you're looking simply for breadth, you can't beat Sze; but that's more of a reference book than a textbook if you're just starting. Streetman was what I learned from first, and include many extended topics such as optoelectronics and memory devices; but sometimes I found the notation and writing awkward and the concepts not tied together. Where Casey excels is in his clarity. The scope covers semiconductor physics, diodes, BJTs, and FETs, so it's not as comprehensive as the other two. But concepts are more clearly laid out and explained, making this my favorite. Casey also includes SPICE examples, so readers can see how altering physical properties effects device performance. All in all, a fundamentally sound and excellent texbook.

If you are loooking for one book that will give you all the fundamentals of semiconductor device physics, then this book is the best choice. It clearly illustrates the concepts of mobility, BJT's, MOS, Schottky Barrier Devices, MOSFET, etc. However this book lags in the explanation of small signal behavior of these devices. Good fundamentals about spice simulation of these devices is provided.

This book competes with RF Pierret "Semiconductor Device Fundamentals" and BG Streetman "Solid State Electronic Devices". Compared to Pierret there is less reader feedback in terms of review and worked problems. Problems tend to be of the same type and level.

Compared to Streetman (5th Edition) coverage is narrower, without optoelectronic, microwave and power devices. For electrical engineers, this greater focus is rewarded in Casey's book with in-depth introduction to SPICE simulations of all covered devices. For MOSFETs focus is on level 1 and level 2 PSpice, with a description of higher models up to level 6, BSIM3.

In addition to PSpice, the sales point for Casey is physics of device operation. For example, it has solid discussions of intrinsic carrier density (why doesn't simple formula agree with experiment?) and of MOSFET threshold voltage. None of the other books come close for authoritative, basic argument.