Book excerpt: Electronics for Scientists provides comprehensive coverage of a vital part of modern science courses. This book will give students and experimentalists a thorough knowledge of the concepts involved and their applications to practical situations. The text is graded into three parts, and is illustrated with line diagrams, plots from circuit simulators and photographs from oscilloscope traces. Part One assumes very little prior knowledge of electronics and provides a foundation for the book. Recognising that in the fast-moving electronic instrumentation industry, most instruments have a market lifetime of only a few years, in Parts 2 and 3, descriptions of specific circuits are deliberately avoided. Instead the 'electronic building blocks' approach is adopted, so that any instrument, old or brand new, can be analysed on a functional basis. Electronics for Scientists will be essential reading for all undergraduate science students and experimentalists using commercially available electronic instruments or innovating their own instruments for specific applications.