There Are No Electrons: Electronics for Earthlings by Kenn Amdahl (PDF)

Description

An off-beat introduction to the workings of electricity for people who wish Richard Brautigan and Kurt Vonnegut had teamed up to explain inductance and capacitance to them. Despite its title, it’s not wild ranting pseudo-science to be dismissed by those with brains. Rather, Amdahl maintains that one need not understand quantum physics to grasp how electricity works in practical applications. To understand your toaster or your fax machine, it doesn’t really matter whether there are electrons or not, and it’s a lot easier and more fun to start with the toaster than with quarks and calculus. The book is mildly weird, often funny, always clear and easy to understand. It assumes the reader doesn’t know a volt from a hole in the ground and gently leads him or her through integrated circuits, radio, oscillators and the basics of the digital revolution using examples that include green buffalo, microscopic beer parties, break-dancing chickens and naked Norwegian girls in rowboats. OK, it’s more than mildly weird.The book has been reprinted numerous times since 1991 and has achieved minor cult status. Reviewed and praised in dozens of electronics and educational magazines, it is used as a text by major corporations, colleges, high schools, military schools and trade schools. It has been studied by education programs at colleges across the United States. This book was making wise cracks in the corner before anyone thought of designing books for dummies and idiots; some say it helped to inspire that industry.It may be the only “introduction to electronics books” with back cover comments by Dave Barry, Ray Bradbury, Clive Cussler, and George Garrett, as well as recomendations from Robert Hazen, Bob Mostafapour, Dr. Roger Young, Dr. Wayne Green, Scott Rundle, Brian Battles, Michelle Guido, Herb Reichert and Emil Venere. As Monitoring Times said, “Perhaps the best electronics book ever. If you’d like to learn about basic electronics but haven’t been able to pull it off, get There Are No Electrons. Just trust us. Get the book.”

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “Amdahl’s book has a serious purpose behind the flippancy and silliness: to teach electricity and electronics to mathematics and physics anxiety sufferers.” — Choice”Don’t let non-ham friends or family find this book in your library, though; if they read it, they’ll find out that there’s no big mystery to electronics and spoil their image of you as a master of a stupefying technical art.” Brian Battles — QST Magazine”Every millennium or so, a radical non-conformist type appears on the scene to challenge the status quo of science. In this case, the heretic postures that electronics doesn’t have to be so difficult. Kenn Amdahl is to electronics manuals what Dr. Seuss is to children’s books” Scott Rundle — B & W’s Coda”Here at last is a book that explains electricity in terms simple enough even for the scientifically impaired. Though uncredentialed and unconventional professing disbelief in the existence of electrons even as he describes their behavior Amdahl is nevertheless wise, witty, and very effective, aiding comprehension of abstruse jargon and arcane concepts with gimmicks like dancing chickens, wizards, and green buffalo” — A Common Reader”Like a lighthearted melding of Mr. Wizard and the folks of National Lampoon, There Are No Electrons takes a radically different approach to electronics. Electrons are little green men on their way to a killer party; capacitors are parking lot sized traffic jams; Greenies, it seems, like to surf on magnetic flux. And why not? Even the experts must speculate the details of electron theory. Amdahl just sees things a little differently. You will too.” — Videomaker Magazine”Most of all, the book is a thought provoker and teacher, leading the reader with no background in science or math gently down the road to electrical enlightenment. It would be a useful supplement to any beginning course in electronics.” — Old Colony Sound Lab”The Mysteries of Electricity are Revealed in this bizarre and often amusing text-book-in-a-clown suit. It’ll seem needlessly frivolous and even flippant to the annoying minority that have no trouble copping an A in physics. For the other four billion or so earth citizens, it’s about the easiest and clearest course in basic electronics imaginable. It serves well as a refresher course or a solid introduction to the complicated stuff. The presentation is accessible to a sixth-grader, yet I’d guess that most adults would not be gagged by the author’s antics. If you can hack this style of teaching, you’ll get what you need.” — The Whole Earth ReviewThis is a totally painless way to learn about something that affects our lives every day. If only we could get Amdahl to write books on history, geography, grammar, math and brain surgery, we’d have no need for schools. –Big Books From Small Presses From the Back Cover “There Are No Electrons changed my life. I lost 17 pounds in five minutes without dieting, and I feel great!” Dave Barry “Fascinating and fun! We all feel somewhat dumb when it comes to electronics. There Are No Electrons would be a proper tonic for this ignorance” Ray Bradbury “I think There Are No Electrons is a major breakthrough in teaching the elementary physics of electricity. It should be required basic reading for high school science students. “After 58 years of wandering in an electronic void, even a blockhead like me, who could never visualize the abstract, was able to penetrate the nebulous mists of amps, volts, current, induction, and conductors, and actually understand what the hell they’re all about. “Who knows? Perhaps it will lead to a whole new concept of teaching.” Clive Cussler “I am sure that Kenn Amdahl’s lively and entertaining book will be a whole lot of help to people who are seriously engaged in learning about electronics. And that is an important achievement. But, above and beyond the practical, Amdahl, with a magical energy all his own, has created a wonderful book about ‘a beautiful and powerful mystery.’ This book is about electricity and everything else, too. I can’t wait to recommend it to all my friends.” George Garrett About the Author Kenn Amdahl lives in Colorado where he has been active in the writing community for many years. His other books include: The Land of Debris and the Home of Alfredo, Jumper and the Bones, Joy Writing: Discover and Develop Your Creative Voice and Revenge of the Pond Scum: Searching for the causes of Alzheimer s Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson s Disease. He is co-author (with Jim Loats, Ph.D.) of both Algebra Unplugged and Calculus for Cats. A book of his poetry, “Stones in the Water” is scheduled for release in early 2015. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction: About the Book There are people in this world who honestly believe they understand electricity, just as there were once alchemists who thought they understood how to transform lead into gold. These people should not be despised or ridiculed; Rather, they should be tolerated and gently educated until they are ready to rejoin society. No one really understands electricity. But no one wants to admit it. Once I realized that truth, it became easy to learn about electricity. Whatever it is (the accepted theory changes every fifty years or so), the stuff has been observed and studied for several hundred years. We can predict its behavior, just as an ancient witch-doctor could predict an eclipse. And we can use it, as a cook uses yeast, even though he doesn’t know or care, what all those microscopic critters are doing in his dough. There is a lot we can learn about electricity. Yet some people prefer to stay ignorant about the workings of electricity, out of a kind of fear, similar to our fear of automobile engines. We know there’s a monster lurking under the hood (or in those wires…). We know that it feeds upon gasoline and magic (or that it dwells in nuclear power plants and lightning…) and if we disturb it, it will strand us at the worst possible time (or electrocute us). Perhaps if we ignore it, it will leave us alone. I am here to tell you that electricity is a trained elephant. It is big and strong, yes. We avoid the tusks and try not to let it step on us, of course. But it is a friendly giant, with a very simple mind, and it always responds to the commands we have taught it. A child can lead it like a puppy. Electricity has less than a dozen observable characteristics; We seldom are concerned with more than half of these. Electricity is comparable in complexity to a facial tissue. A facial tissue may have length, width, thickness, weight, color, fragrance, texture, some number of plies or layers, strength, absorbency, a brand name and a price. Add to that the fact that it may be either mine or yours, or of unknown origin, and that it may be either new or used, fresh and smooth or mashed together after months in last winter’s coat pocket, or that it may have gone through the washing machine a time or two, and you can see that a facial tissue is a lot more complicated that electricity. There are six ways to produce electricity; you need to understand two of them. Of the six ways to get useful work out of electricity, only three are important. And most of our manipulation of electricity is accomplished with a dozen or fewer devices in various combinations. That’s it. When you understand two dozen concepts you’ll feel comfortable with electricity. I have eaten cole slaw that had more ingredients. Electricity is simple. But it is not ordinary or boring. It is a beautiful and powerful mystery. If there is magic in the universe, the evidence must surely be electricity and life itself. Just as we know enough about life to perform crude biological parlor tricks (grow hybrid corn, treat a simple disease), so we are children in the sorcerer’s work-room playing with electrical spells we don’t really understand. We can no more explain the inner workings of the electrical phenomenon than we can breathe life into a crescent wrench. Yet we have seen its power, and the few tricks we can perform make us feel wise indeed. Shall we study this wonder the same way we study geography or algebra (subjects that really are boring)? No. Like any magical thing, it should be studied by flashlight, under the covers, late at night so mom and dad won’t know. Keep this book hidden, in your own secret place. As you learn the magic words, the potions, the hexes and spells, you will understand that you have unlocked a remarkable force from another dimension. Your fear will slowly change to an eerie curiosity. You will find yourself wanting to know more, no matter what the price. Finally, you will call out in the stillness of your darkened room, “Show yourself! I am not afraid!” You will force yourself to sit still, but your hands will be trembling. You will hear a sound, somewhere in the darkness. And when that awesome, grinning genie finally swells into the room with blood red eyes and flashes of lightning showing through his ghostly mass, then you will wonder at your own brave foolishness, and ache to run to some bright and safe place… but it will be too late. He will lean low until you feel his hot ozone breath on your cheek. His voice will crackle and hum like a high voltage power line as he whispers in your ear: “You have summoned me, master. What is your command?” There will be no time to check your notes. You will hold your breath, fight down your terror, and make a wish. Telling yourself, over and over again, that you don’t believe in magic. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This is one of those remarkable books that manage to convey asmall group of ideas that will have you longing to learn even moreabout electricity and electronics. Why? Because this fellow canexplain electricity in a way that you will easily grasp. Once yourealize that no one, absolutely no one, actually fully understandsany aspect of electricity completely, and that the author is notgoing to try to BS you into believing otherwise, you will be ableto relax and learn concepts instead being spoonfed formulas,facts, and math.This book ranks up there with the great science explainer booksfor laymen ever written. There is a little bit of arithmetic inthe book, very little. Most books feel like a map to somewhere,but the authors so often feel that somewhere is not worthdescribing, or are so incurious themselves that they don’t evenseem to grasp that many important conceptual concepts can becommunicated without a degree in physics. But this book isconcepts first, last, and always.

⭐”There are no electrons, It’s greenies – little green guys(not the ones from X-Files) who like to party.On the positive side of the battery you got a bunch of Greenie chicks. And, I mean some of those chicks are very positive ;)On the negative side, you got some Greenie dudes. Those chicks, they buy a couple of kegs and turn up their little boom boxes. Us guys, we hear the music, and right away we feel that need to party. The more chicks there are, the more little boom boxes they got which makes the music loud. That means more dudes hear it and feel that need to party.So we find a road and cruise down to the positive side to party. Voltage is that need to party, its the reason we go. It’s our thirst for brew, the big itch that must be scratched. You call it voltage we call it need to party.”I could not understand what voltage is till I read this. I have read several books watched several videos over the ears to understand these simple concepts of electricity but all those efforts went in vain. I have found all those books and materials to be very boring and unhelpful, they start with some simple concept but very quickly dive into formulas and more formulas. Then I found this book, It blew my mind away. I could not believe someone could teach electricity with a fairy tale like story. Kenn should be given a noble price in scientific education.If you are like me who want to learn the concepts of electricity but cannot understand the usual text books then you should definitely give this a try. But let me warn you, don’t get lost in the fairy tale story. Now I don’t think that this book can replace all other text books but I do think that this style of teaching is very important. It keeps the audience engaged especially when they are kids. Kids hate formulas and complicated jargon, trust me, we all have been there. I think what this book did was to bring back my interest in electronics like no other book did. This is the first book on electronics that I have read multiple times in my life and yet I find it as interesting every time I read as I found it the first time.I have always been interested in building electronic circuits but could never do so as I could never understand the basic concepts of electricity. I don’t think I understand it even now, but this book has diverted my interested from building circuits to actually understanding electronics and more importantly not by reading a book but by reasoning. I do not know why I cannot understand electronics like some other people do using regular text books. I guess because Kenn is right, no one really understands electricity. But they don’t want to admit. Below is one of my favourite part in the book, it posed a question I never got in my mind.”If the negative terminals of the battery have too few electrons and positive end has too many of them and opposites attract then why can’t I hook up a wire between negative end of one battery and positive end of another battery and get any current?”Apart from explaining some of the simple concepts of electricity what this book also does is bring back the scientist in us which had died in our child hood because of the style of education we received in our school. So rather than just reading books and believing what ever book says we start wondering like a child to try to find the answers.People say arts and science don’t mix. Well this book proves them wrong. This is a book on science which is written very creatively and artistically and very simple to understand. It’s not just science, its very humane.I think this book should be taken as an inspiration and an example of creating our next generation of education system.

⭐Pretty simplistic approach to understanding electronics and didn’t go as far as I would have liked. I do work in electronics and radio transmissions and always looking for a fresh look at the subject. A little less story telling and more real electronics would be helpful. If you read between the fluff, you can learn some electronics.

⭐The book presented the material in an easy to understand, but more importantly in an easy to remember way using analogies that are hard to forget. The problem I’m finding as a newbie is that the concepts make sense when you are reading about them but you forget them soon after you finish to book. It’s a lot easer to retain how a transistor works it’s when is visualized as bunch of wacked out chickens running across bare floor and a carpet rather than electrons moving from an n type to p type material. It sounds silly but it makes this stuff stick. But this book presents the concepts using conventional theory as well, so you’ll be well prepared to build on what you learned. The story was fun too, and I got some genuine laughs out of it.You will not be an electronics expert after reading this, but you’ll have the basics that seem to be skipped over in other books.A lot of times why you ‘ll find in beginner book is that the author will start off all nice and easy, and then forget their target audience and get all esoteric. Won’t happen here.I was disappointed that the use of transistors in some basic circuits was not covered. I would like to see a book by Kenn Amdahl author describing how electronic amplifiers work in greater detail.. maybe as a book II to this one.Also I still don’t get why electrons/greenies don’t flow when the negative terminal of one battery is wired to the positive terminal of another. I thought that would become clear by the end of the book maybe I missed that along where the wizard hid the 10,000

⭐I purchased this book after reading the author’s seemingly-excellent ‘Calculus for Cats’ (oh, how I wish I had a copy of that book when I was at college!) as I enjoy quirky approaches to learning science. But I have to say that I was very disappointed with ‘There Are No Electrons’. The author’s humorous approach to the subject is completely spoilt by numerous technical inaccuracies throughout. For example, he confuses ‘power’ with ‘energy’, where he explains how electricity companies charge consumers for ‘power’ (actually, it’s ‘energy’!) in ‘kilowatts per month’ (actually, it’s ‘kilowatt hours’!). There’s simply no excuse for errors such as this. He talks about magnetic fields ‘inducing currents’ into wires; they don’t, they induce ‘voltages’ into wires! There are lots of other inaccuracies throughout that I won’t bore you with in this review. If you want to write a humorous book in order to make a subject interesting and to explain the science, then in MUST be technically accurate. This book falls on its face in that respect. I now have to wonder how accurate ‘Calculus for Cats’ is!!

⭐Before reading this book I knew ‘vaguely what electric parts do’, and I could probably plug together a circuit from a diagram. I also have grades in science courses that say I understand volts and currents and resistance and all that.Now I have read this book, I feel I understand the basic ideas behind the most important electronic ideas and jargon, to at least to the level I need to to ‘get’ most household devices. Kenn’s way of explaining might seem ‘silly’ or ‘stupid’ because it is so easy and pleasant to read, but under that easy reading is a torrent of well disguised knowledge and information. I have come away from this book with a much better grasp of electricity and how it works.If you need a way to think about electricity and those ‘electron things’, to see things from another perspective, then get this book. If you’re looking for an entertaining read and you’ve ever wondered how your radio works… well, get this book! You really need no prior knowledge and you’ll come away feeling better about the whole idea of electricity.A ‘fact’ about the book – it isn’t a course textbook. This is not a negative point though, just a warning if you have limited funds and you have been told need a textbook. It isn’t a bible of formulas, it doesn’t contain any complex circuit diagrams, and it doesn’t have more than a few simple math formulas. Despite this, I would hate to study electronics without reading this book first, so I recommend it in addition to a textbook if possible!

⭐This is an interesting read. More for fun than understanding about electronics. However although I’m only half way through the book I find I want to finish it. Bizzare, but some how makes things less weird. Who understands the terms? Who really knows what electricity does? Less boring than the standard pump and water flow model. Not really suitable for children, but teenagers maybe. Are there any electrons? This book can confuse you more, but still worth the entertainment value.

⭐This should be taught in school. He is an ex IBM engineer and has a real knack for explaining everthing in a simple manner that most teenagers + should be able to understand. He also covers some more complex stuff towards the end of the book. I wish everyone could teach this well!

⭐Good information, makes things a lot less frightening, re-read several times to get the benefit. Gets rid of a lot of misinformation.

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