Basic Electronics: for Scientists and Engineers

A professor of mine once opined that the best working experimentalists tended to
have a good grasp of basic electronics. Experimental data often come in the form of
electronic signals, and one needs to understand how to acquire and manipulate such
signals properly. Indeed, in graduate school, everyone had a story about a budding
scientist who got very excited about some new result, only to later discover that the
result was just an artifact of the electronics they were using (or misusing!). In addition,
most research labs these days have at least a few homemade circuits, often because
the desired electronic function is either not available commercially or is prohibitively
expensive. Other anecdotes could be added, but these suffice to illustrate the utility of
understanding basic electronics for the working scientist.