Audiophile bibliophilia nervosa

[EC8010]

My name's EC8010 and I can't resist buying old books. I even buy books with fearsome titles - the first book I ordered this evening was "Laplace Transforms for Electronics Engineers" (the same series includes "Electronics for Dogs"). I can almost resist books I don't know about, but once someone lends me a book, the pain of returning it is so great that I have to buy a copy of my very own. Please, please, tell me I'm not alone in this affliction.

[Gluca]

Would you lend me that book on the laplace transformers?

[Zen Mod]

Originally posted by EC8010
.................Please, please, tell me I'm not alone in this affliction.

my name isn't EC8010 (even if I adore this toob) but I probably have even broader type of that affliction

[SY]

Thanks to a recent bulk purchase of the McGraw-Hill series, I'm sated for the moment (but not for too long, sadly). Having just piled through Mischa Schwartz, Landee, and Millman, and preparing to curl up with Eastman this weekend, I have some sympathy for you, but not much.

Mrs. Y does not understand in the least why I don't throw books away after reading them. I gave her a rather crude analogy, pointing out that I didn't throw her away after the first use...

[Robert McLean]

I enjoy comparing the texts from different eras, and especially to the texts I used in the 70's as a student. Books from the 1930's will reference the works of people like Nyquist and Bode as real living people, and being right there on the cutting edge.

Sy mention Eastman. If it is the same book of his I have, I found it interesting how they number tables and diagrams. 9.3 for example would be the 9th diagram in chapter 3, rather than the common practice today, 3rd diagram of chapter 9. Has anyone else noticed this in other books ?

Anyway, there is lots of good stuff in old books, and I cant get enough of them.

For a similar sort of enjoyment, see all the books in pdf form on Pete Millet's site, which has been mentioned here before. I download all the ones I like, rather than rely on the website. A similar affliction to buying books. I just wish there was some sort of reusable paper/ reusable ink to print them out with, so I could read them like a real book without wasting a whole lot of paper and or money.

[pinkmouse]

I was in a charity shop today, and blew the grand sum of fifty pence.

[SY]

OK Al, here's your take-home problem. Consider the classic one dimensional particle-in-a-box, but instead of the box having a "flat" bottom (i.e., constant non-infinite potential between the box boundaries), the bottom is tilted. Call one side V(x=0) = 0, the other side V(x=b) = a, with a and b being some constants.

Now for the normal case, a = 0, and the solutions of the Hamiltonian are sine waves with integral multiples of the reciprocal of the box width. This is forced by the boundary conditions that the wavefunction must vanish at the box walls.

OK, what are the eigenfunctions of the Hamiltonian for the tilted bottom box? And what's the ground state energy?

(This was a final exam problem when I took introductory QM back when Heisenberg and Dirac still walked the Earth)

[gingertube]

My "affliction" has grown to such mammoth proportions that I am having to get an extension built onto the house as I've simply run out of wall space for bookshelves. Of-course the 3,500 strong Science Fiction Collection doesn't help. In contrast the Electronics "Technical library" is only about 100 text books but the Electronics World, Vacuum Tube Valley etc. magazines also take a heap of space and the 2 off 4 drawer filing cabinets with schematics and diyAudio printouts is bursting at the seams.

I had a "win" recently - the local "Cheap as Chips" discount store had a range of stackable A4 plastic filing drawers. The tube collection (all except some big power tubes and some big rectifiers) went into those.

Worse still - being a true "Virgo" everything is in alphabetical order so that I can find stuff when I need it.

Cheers,
Ian

[pinkmouse]

Originally posted by SY
OK Al, here's your take-home problem...

Rats, I started with the wrong book. I could give you a quick summary of Jacques Derrida's concepts of Structure, Sign, and Play if that would help?

[SY]

It couldn't even help Derrida.

If you ever find Gross and Leavitt's book on the deconstruction movement and its relationship to science, don't hesitate. Let's just say that deconstruction doesn't fare very well...