Page 14 - Engineering Electromagnetics, 8th Edition

PREFACE

It has been 52 years since the first edition of this book was published, then under the
sole authorship of William H. Hayt, Jr. As I was five years old at that time, this would
have meant little to me. But everything changed 15 years later when I used the second
edition in a basic electromagnetics course as a college junior. I remember my sense
of foreboding at the start of the course, being aware of friends’ horror stories. On first
opening the book, however, I was pleasantly surprised by the friendly writing style
and by the measured approach to the subject, which — at least for me — made it a
very readable book, out of which I was able to learn with little help from my professor.
I referred to it often while in graduate school, taught from the fourth and fifth editions
as a faculty member, and then became coauthor for the sixth and seventh editions on
the retirement (and subsequent untimely death) of Bill Hayt. The memories of my
time as a beginner are clear, and I have tried to maintain the accessible style that I
found so welcome then.
Over the 50-year span, the subject matter has not changed, but emphases have. In
theuniversities,thetrendcontinuestowardreducingelectricalengineeringcorecourse
allocations to electromagnetics. I have made efforts to streamline the presentation in
this new edition to enable the student to get to Maxwell’s equations sooner, and I have
added more advanced material. Many of the earlier chapters are now slightly shorter
than their counterparts in the seventh edition. This has been done by economizing on
the wording, shortening many sections, or by removing some entirely. In some cases,
deleted topics have been converted to stand-alone articles and moved to the website,
from which they can be downloaded. Major changes include the following: (1) The
material on dielectrics, formerly in Chapter 6, has been moved to the end of Chapter 5.
(2) The chapter on Poisson’s and Laplace’s equations has been eliminated, retaining
only the one-dimensional treatment, which has been moved to the end of Chapter 6.
The two-dimensional Laplace equation discussion and that of numerical methods have
been moved to the website for the book. (3) The treatment on rectangular waveguides
(Chapter 13) has been expanded, presenting the methodology of two-dimensional
boundary value problems in that context. (4) The coverage of radiation and antennas
has been greatly expanded and now forms the entire Chapter 14.
Some 130 new problems have been added throughout. For some of these, I chose
particularly good “classic” problems from the earliest editions. I have also adopted
anew system in which the approximate level of difficulty is indicated beside each
problem on a three-level scale. The lowest level is considered a fairly straightforward
problem, requiring little work assuming the material is understood; a level 2 problem
is conceptually more difficult, and/or may require more work to solve; a level 3 prob-
lem is considered either difficult conceptually, or may require extra effort (including
possibly the help of a computer) to solve.

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