Best of
Technology

1975

The New Science of Strong Materials: Or Why You Don't Fall Through the Floor


J.E. Gordon - 1975
    E. Gordon's classic introduction to the properties of materials used in engineering answers some fascinating and fundamental questions about how the structural world around us works. Gordon focuses on so-called strong materials--such as metals, wood, ceramics, glass, and bone--explaining in engaging and accessible terms the unique physical and chemical basis for their inherent structural qualities. He also shows how an in-depth understanding of these materials' intrinsic strengths--and weaknesses--guides our engineering choices, allowing us to build the structures that support our society. This work is an enduring example of first-rate scientific communication. Philip Ball's introduction describes Gordon's career and the impact of his innovations in materials research, while also discussing how the field has evolved since Gordon wrote this enduring example of first-rate scientific communication.

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering


Frederick P. Brooks Jr. - 1975
    With a blend of software engineering facts and thought-provoking opinions, Fred Brooks offers insight for anyone managing complex projects. These essays draw from his experience as project manager for the IBM System/360 computer family and then for OS/360, its massive software system. Now, 45 years after the initial publication of his book, Brooks has revisited his original ideas and added new thoughts and advice, both for readers already familiar with his work and for readers discovering it for the first time.The added chapters contain (1) a crisp condensation of all the propositions asserted in the original book, including Brooks' central argument in The Mythical Man-Month: that large programming projects suffer management problems different from small ones due to the division of labor; that the conceptual integrity of the product is therefore critical; and that it is difficult but possible to achieve this unity; (2) Brooks' view of these propositions a generation later; (3) a reprint of his classic 1986 paper "No Silver Bullet"; and (4) today's thoughts on the 1986 assertion, "There will be no silver bullet within ten years."

Geometry and Trigonometry for Calculus


Peter H. Selby - 1975
    Its major emphasis is on graphic representation of problems and upon their solution by the combined analytic methods of geometry and algebra.

Electronic Communication


Robert L. Shrader - 1975
    This expandedSixth Edition utilizes the same user friendly format to prepare students for the operation, installation, and maintenance of most modern electronic and radio communication systems. Performance objectives have been added to each chapter to guide student focus. Electronic Communication provides information on the interrelationship of voltage, current, resistance, inductance, and capacitance as well as discussions of various active devices currently in use. While the text emphasizes semiconductor devices and circuitry, it still retains an adequate amount of vacuum tube theory. In addition, this edition features up-to-date coverage of digital communications and fiber optics, topics that are critical to the skills development of today's communication student. To reinforce understanding of subjects just covered, check-up quizzes are inserted every few pages in most chapters, with answers on the next turned page. End-of-chapter questions, which include number references to the section or figure where the answer can be found, check comprehension of the entire chapter's material. Bold letters prefixing many end-of-chapter questions indicate that a similar question may appear in one of the specific certification license tests. The Lab Manual has been expanded to include more experiments that correlate with the revisions made to the text. As always, the manual's experiments reinforce text content and are an integrated part of the total package.

The Social History of the Machine Gun


John Ellis - 1975
    The Social History of the Machine Gun, now with a new foreword by Edward C. Ezell, provides an original and fascinating interpretation of weaponry, warfare, and society in nineteenth-and twentieth-century Europe and America.From its beginning, the machine gun threatened established assumptions about the nature of war. In spite of its highly effective use in the European colonization of Africa, the machine gun was resisted by military elites, who clung to the old certanties of the battlefield--the glorious change and opportunities for individual heroism. These values were carried into the trenches of World War I and swept away along with a generation of soldiers.After the war, machine guns became commercially availble in America and in many ways became a symbol of the times. Advertisements touted the Thompson submachine gun as the ideal weapon for protecting factory and farm, while tommy guns entered the culture's imagination with Machine Gun Kelly and Boonie and Clyde. More significantly, Ellis suggests, the machine gun was the catalyst for the modern arms race. It necessitated a technological response: first the armored tank, then the jet fighter, and, perhaps ultimately, the hydrogen bomb.

Pump Handbook


Igor J. Karassik - 1975
    It deals with various types of pumps, materials of construction, drivers, controls and valves, systems, and services to which they are applied, intakes and suction piping, selecting and purchasing.

Optical Processes in Semiconductors


Jacques I. Pankove - 1975
    The author has combined, for the graduate student and researcher, a great variety of source material, journal research, and many years of experimental research, adding new insights published for the first time in this book.Coverage includes energy states in semiconductors and their perturbation by external parameters, absorption, relationships between optical constants, spectroscopy, radiative transitions, nonradiative recombination, processes in pn junctions, semiconductor lasers, interactions involving coherent radiation, photoelectric emission, photovoltaic effects, polarization effects, photochemical effects, effect of traps on luminescence, and reflective modulation.The author has presented the subject in a manner which couples readily to physical intuition. He introduces new techniques and concepts, including nonradiative recombination, effects of doping on optical properties, Franz-Keldysh effect in absorption and emission, reflectance modulation, and many others. Dr. Pankove emphasizes the underlying principle that can be applied to the analysis and design of a wide variety of functional devices and systems. Many valuable references, illustrative problems, and tables are also provided here.

Telecommunication Transmission Handbook


Roger L. Freeman - 1975
    Provides the necessary guidance to incorporate the many disciplines involved in transmission and coordinate them into an optimal operational system. The emphasis is on point-to-point transmission systems. Covers broadband radio, line-of-sight microwave, tropospheric scatter, satellite communications, narrow band radio, cable, fiber optic and data, video and facsimile transmission.