Book Review of: Core Engineering Concepts for Students and Professionals

A Comprehensive Reference Covering Thousands of Engineering Topics

Price: $200
 

(You can print this review in landscape mode, if you want a hardcopy)

Reviewer: Mark Lamendola, author of over 6,000 articles.

Pick any superlative. Pick several. Now, multiply them together and you won't even begin to describe how good this book is. Having written several blistering reviews lately, I was in the mood for a high quality book. This work by Michael Lindenburg did not disappoint.

The first thing that struck me was its sheer size (1440 pages at 8.5 x 11) and weight (about 6.5 lbs--I weighed it). Granted, there are many code book sets that weigh far more, but this is still heavy for a single book.

The next thing that struck me is the excellent use of navigation aids. Having been an engineer myself (with many awards from the IEEE, including Outstanding Member) and having been recognized as an expert in the National Electrical Code, I am quite familiar with how difficult it can be to find things in an engineering reference book. This work has several nice touches to alleviate that problem. These include faux tabs, a faux tab "print" at the front, quick reference guides, logical organization, and an index slightly over 60 pages long. I also like the fact that reference tables and similar items are place in appendices so they don't clutter up the main text. There are, in fact, 159 pages of Appendices.

The book consists of eighteen "Topics," which are similar to "Parts" in some works. Each Topic is an assembly of chapters relevant to that topic. Topics include such things as Mathematics (naturally), Fluids, Thermodynamics, Material Science, Circuits, and Physics. And, yes, it does get intense at times. The math includes all of the heavy duty, mind-twisting stuff we engineers have come to know and love.

This book contains 82 chapters. At the start of each chapter is a short TOC, followed by (if applicable) a listing of the nomenclature, symbols, and subscripts used. The contents in each chapter are amazing in their depth and clarity of presentation.

The book is not a tutorial, but a resource for reference and review. The explanations, therefore, are short and to the point. I personally don't want to wade through a 16-page explanation of something I can almost remember. The purpose of a reference work is to fill in those forgotten facts. This book does so nicely. If you don't have an engineering background, then of course it's not going to make up for that. Nothing can; you have to crunch the numbers to learn the concepts.

You may notice the price. This is less than what many of us pay for professional membership dues each year, and it's certainly less than the cost of a "small" engineering mistake.

Earlier, I said I'd done several blistering reviews. The basic problem was the authors were too lazy to do their research and get their facts straight. That is not at all the case with this work. Lindenburg says he put 30 years into creating this, and I believe him because it shows. No, I did not check every formula. Yes, I did spot check a few and they were correct. It's possible you will find an error in this book. If you don't know how to calculate the probability of that, turn to 13-4 to see how to do that.

But you don't need to run any calculations to determine whether this book is worth every penny. If you're an engineer, it's one of the best investments you can make.