I have written sort of a book that I use when I teach a course in Linear
Electronics. This is not published, I just distribute copies to my
students when I teach this course. I wrote the first draft in 1977, but
revise it every couple of years. The most recent revision is 2001. My
first chapter deals with power supplies, and the first section of the
first chapter deals with understanding potentials, potential
differences, and grounding.
I have taken the first section of the first chapter and converted it to
a PDF file and placed it on a server that you can have access to. The
URL is www.bluffton.edu/~edmistonm/electronics_chap1_1.pdf Note: what
look like spaces in the URL are underscores.
This is intended for college juniors and seniors, so it has a small bit
of calculus in it. But you can skip most of that. If you want you can
read section 1.1.1, then skip to 1.1.4, then skip to 1.1.6 and read to
the end. In my book, each section ends with some lab exercises intended
to demonstrate the principles, so this is a combined text and lab
manual.
The section I have posted might help people who struggle with ideas of
positive, negative, grounding, etc. I discovered early on that problems
with these ideas were really inhibiting many students as they tried to
understand electronics, so I started the book with this material in an
attempt to help students get it straightened out right from the start.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Bluffton College
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu