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        This site is the personal website of Chris Bishop.  As an engineer, I have frequently found the need for certain information to be found easily and at one spot.  Electromagnetics.biz provides an ideal means to accomplish this goal.  At the same time, I recognize that much of the information gathered here might be of use to others.  It seems reasonable to share the wealth and encourage others to contribute to this repository.

        For my PhD dissertation I often required the actual data from graphs published in journals.  Gathering this information is very difficult unless you know how to contact the author of a paper and then persuade him or her to send you a copy of the raw data.  Sometimes I needed data from authors that were deceased.  Thus, it was my idea to build a database of actual results as published in journals.  This seems like a very big task, so if anyone has any suggestions, please send them my way.

        Also for my dissertation I learned a lot about mathematics -- numerical integration, matrix algebra, and geometry.  Much of what is written about mathematics is written in what I call "mathematese," a strange language not generally spoken by engineers.  For example, if I asked an engineer how to solve a matrix equation, Ax = b, he or she would probably answer "x equals b times the inverse of A."  A mathematician would start by assuming something about A, x, and b -- "Suppose that A is a member of a vector space, C2...." and then go on from there.  The point is that although I have learned a bit about this language, I sure wish the mathematicians would answer in English!  Finding some of this information in plain English is tough, so as I get to it I will write it down on this website.

        By the way, there is a lot that we humans know about geometry that we did not learn in high school.  A lot of it a reasonable engineer could derive, but this takes time, and finding it concisely in one spot is a problem.  Once again, what I have learned I will someday typeset.

        On the job, I have needed certain tidbits of information that I have to find somehow.  For instance, we had the occassion to plate copper.  Our choices for a plating material were essentially tin, silver, and gold.  Which plating material does one use, and why?  While schools teach us a lot, they often omit much of the practical stuff.  Now I can post these tidbits as I run across them so that I never have to find them again!

        (An interesting aside comes from my year of teaching at a community college.  I was teaching primarily people who were training to be technicians rather than engineers.  I learned that technicians learn A LOT more about very practical things and very little about theoretical things -- the very reverse of my education.  It seems that technicians are like doctors -- they are trained to look at some symptoms, diagnose what is wrong, and fix the problem.  Engineers and technicians are the perfect complements of theory and practice.)

        There you have it, my motivation for creating this site.  I always welcome any content or useful links that you can provide.  In exchange, you will be able to link to it directly from this site rather than book marking it.  Hopefully, I will organize the information in a manner useful to you!

Chris Bishop

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