Why are physicists the electronics experts?

[Connecteur]

When I look up the answer to an electronics question online, it's often a physicist who is giving the answer.  Do they know more about electronics than someone who actually works with electronics?

[wraper]

When I look up the answer to an electronics question online, it's often a physicist who is giving the answer.  Do they know more about electronics than someone who actually works with electronics?

What types of questions in particular? If it's something like Ohms law or other sorts of fundamental stuff, I don't see why they would not.

[Domagoj T]

Electronics is applied physics.

[Berni]

What question did you ask them?

If it is something along the lines of "What kind of circuit should i use to transfer power and bidirectonal communication simultaneously over 2 wires" or "How do i make the switchmode regulator <Insert part no. here> output be digitally adjustable" you are very unlikely to get any sort of even remotely useful answer out of a physicist.

If you instead ask something along the lines of "How does a bipolar transistor work?" or "How does an LED work?" or "Why do resistors make thermal noise?" then you are indeed more likely to get a much better answer out of a physicist. The electronics engineers just simply don't care what the electrons are doing inside of that transistor. They can't poke and touch those electrons in there to make them do anything else than what they normally do. They care about the transistors functionality of amplifying current, so they instead know how the transistor behaves and how to use that behavior to do something useful in a circuit. But physicists are way more interested in those electrons whizzing around inside trough those funky energy levels of the junction, while not really caring about what that transistor could do in a useful circuit.

This leads to things like the much debated topic around Dr. Lewin and Kirchhoffs circuit rules.

[TimFox]

Perhaps physicists use electronics more often than electronic engineers use physics?

[bsfeechannel]

The guys who discovered the laws of electromagnetism, quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics that govern our trade were all physicists. The guy who discovered the electron was a physicist. Moreover most of the components we use in electronics were invented by physicists or engineers with a deep knowledge of physics. You name it: resistors, capacitors, inductors, transformers, antennas, vacuum tubes, diodes, transistors, ICs, etc.

[iteratee]

physisist-engineer / engineer-physisists should be out there. Anyone doing cutting-edge R&D on anything in semiconductors would need a few polymaths.

[coppice]

A lot of engineers started out getting a physics degree, and then moved into engineering. I find a lot of microwave people, and people doing deep semiconductor design, have a physics degree.

[richard.cs]

A lot of engineers started out getting a physics degree, and then moved into engineering.

I did, I find it gives me a different approach to engineering problem solving than people who trained as engineers. More of a "from first principles" kind of thing and it seems to work well in the kind of R&D environment I work in. On the other hand it it has left me lacking knowledge in certain engineering-specific areas, e.g. I have had to work hard to catch up on control theory.

[capt bullshot]

Having understood the underlying physics helps to deal with many real-life electronics problems. Like EMC, noise, interference, efficiency, signal integrity, ...

[coppice]

Having understood the underlying physics helps to deal with many real-life electronics problems. Like EMC, noise, interference, efficiency, signal integrity, ...

You don't think an engineering degree covers that in great detail?

[capt bullshot]

Having understood the underlying physics helps to deal with many real-life electronics problems. Like EMC, noise, interference, efficiency, signal integrity, ...

You don't think an engineering degree covers that in great detail?

Mine does. Had a lot of physics stuff to do (wasn't called physics, but rather fundamentals of electrical engineering or whatever the correct translation of "Grundlagen der Elektrotechnik" would be. This did weed out a lot of the people that started their EE studies at the same time I did. Can't speak for the modern BSEE or whatever degrees. To me they look rather small-time in these disciplines.

[NivagSwerdna]

When I look up the answer to an electronics question online, it's often a physicist who is giving the answer.  Do they know more about electronics than someone who actually works with electronics?

Yes 

[filssavi]

Having understood the underlying physics helps to deal with many real-life electronics problems. Like EMC, noise, interference, efficiency, signal integrity, ...

You don't think an engineering degree covers that in great detail?

That is unfortunately not the case.

From what I have seen by working with universities around the world that used to be the case (and often still is) is Europe (Italy, Germany, etc.). Here the traditional teaching order is bottom up, starting with lots of math (complex functional analysis, linear algebra etc) physics, electromagnetism in particular, then device physics (pn junctions, BJT’s, MOS) and on from there.

This gives you amazing basis for research type work.

Unfortunately it’s been some time that we are importing the Top down approach from the US (the UK has been the first, however it is not the only one now). This starts from system level and goes down from there, often times completely neglecting physics, math and even how semiconductor devices work. In a “makery “ type of way.

This is obviously fine for 99.9% of the electronics type work (nobody needs to know the width of the space charge region for the mosfet turning on and off the Smart IOT lightbulb) and thus preferred by most companies ( it is faster and cheaper to train engineers that way) however for research (both academic and Company R&D) in Cutting edge fields, this is really sub-optimal (basically it requires the first year of the PhD to be used up in studying the theory that was skipped before.

Unfortunately we are now (some countries sooner, some later) importing the Top

[FransW]

I can see the common sense and common denominators in the above discussion.

That is why I, after Applied Physics, went for Systems Engineering.
A more multi-disciplinary approach.
Never regretted this.

Frans

[coppice]

Having understood the underlying physics helps to deal with many real-life electronics problems. Like EMC, noise, interference, efficiency, signal integrity, ...

You don't think an engineering degree covers that in great detail?

That is unfortunately not the case.

From what I have seen by working with universities around the world that used to be the case (and often still is) is Europe (Italy, Germany, etc.). Here the traditional teaching order is bottom up, starting with lots of math (complex functional analysis, linear algebra etc) physics, electromagnetism in particular, then device physics (pn junctions, BJT’s, MOS) and on from there.

This gives you amazing basis for research type work.

Unfortunately it’s been some time that we are importing the Top down approach from the US (the UK has been the first, however it is not the only one now). This starts from system level and goes down from there, often times completely neglecting physics, math and even how semiconductor devices work. In a “makery “ type of way.

This is obviously fine for 99.9% of the electronics type work (nobody needs to know the width of the space charge region for the mosfet turning on and off the Smart IOT lightbulb) and thus preferred by most companies ( it is faster and cheaper to train engineers that way) however for research (both academic and Company R&D) in Cutting edge fields, this is really sub-optimal (basically it requires the first year of the PhD to be used up in studying the theory that was skipped before.

Unfortunately we are now (some countries sooner, some later) importing the Top

In the 70s my UK electronics degree went from both directions, and I think that is important. Some of our leaning, like communications, started from a need and worked down to solutions at their lowest level, including the physics. Other leaning, like semiconductor devices, started at the lowest level and worked up to the things you can create from the basic physics.

I know in many countries a lot of recent electronics graduates have little idea who to use basic components, like transistors, and can only design from the IC level up. However, not all degrees are created equal. Surely there are still serious degree courses in most places teaching a proper understanding?

[richard.cs]

I know in many countries a lot of recent electronics graduates have little idea who to use basic components, like transistors, and can only design from the IC level up. However, not all degrees are created equal.

Yes, I have interviewed quite a lot of electronics graduates from a major UK university with a "good" reputation for electroincs, and many of them seem to suffer from this problem, often to a greater amount than you describe. In many cases the lowest-level and most "practical" thing they have done is a matlab simulation of a communications system, diving deep into comms and modulation theory but never having even seen an IC let alone a transistor. In all seriousness we are now tending to recruit electromechanical engineering graduates and other related branches of engineering because so many electronics graduates are lacking in practical electronics skills. That and looking carefully at industry placements and hobbyist experience.

Edit:typo

[Berni]

They do still teach it from the basics upwards here, but it is never called physics. The physics there goes trough the general physics-y stuff like forces, motion, acceleration and going on to waves, light, optics etc.. While its instead called "Basics of electrical engineering" where things go into electric and magnetic fields into how a capacitor or inductor works and onto mesh circuit analysis.

Semiconductors take a similar path having a subject dedicated to going from the grounds up in how diodes and transistors work internally up to the more macroscopic model of what a transistor actually does, up to building a single stage amplifier out of a transistor. Ending up doing measurements on transistors in the lab etc..

As for building useful circuits out of transistors is just not there. This leaves people stranded with this theoretical knowledge inside of a vacuum. They never get to find a use for it in school so it just gets forgotten that much faster.  If any circuits are involved they usually get a schematic handed to them, often also containing higher level building blocks such as opamps. Sure opamps also got explained what they are, how they work and some basic opamp circuits, but i don't think it is explained at any point what transistor magic is inside the opamp in order to make it do what it does, so the continuity from a transistor to an opamp is cut here.

So they do teach the underlying physics behind it pretty well but fail to properly connect it all together into a bigger picture.

[coppice]

I know in many countries a lot of recent electronics graduates have little idea who to use basic components, like transistors, and can only design from the IC level up. However, not all degrees are created equal.

Yes, I have interviewed quite a lot of electronics graduates from a major UK university with a "good" reputation for electroincs, and many of them seem to suffer from this problem, often to a greater amount than you describe. In many cases the lowest-level and most "practical" thing they have done is a matlab simulation of a communications system, diving deep into comms and modulation theory but never having even seen an IC let alone a transistor. In all seriousness we are now tending to recruit electromechanical engineering graduates and other related branches of engineering because so many electronics graduates are lacking in practical electronics skills. That and looking carefully at industry placements and hobbyist experience.

I have heard from some UK academics that health and safety plus cost issues means lab work is mostly matlab work these days.

Someone with an electronics degree who has little understanding of basic components is not necessarily a bad thing. Electronics is now a big topic, and every engineer is a specialist of some kind, For example, many careers in electronic engineering can be entirely based on the maths of communications.

[Nominal Animal]

I suspect that it's either just a random occurrence; or perhaps that among those who work with electronics, physicists are more likely to answer questions online than actual electronics experts.

[SerieZ]

My gut tells me that we see Industry experts more doing Webinars, Writing Articles, Books etc. and not really much on stack exchange answering basic (or exceedingly complicated!!) questions.

To me the whole Question from OP is way to open and feels like a Bait from a Physics Undergrad to tease his electronics buddy TBQH. 
I doubt that was the intention tho.

[dietert1]

Looking at engineering problems in an extended context including physical considerations can sometimes help to find answers. A physicist is privileged in that sense and many physicists like to teach others.

Regards, Dieter

[SiliconWizard]

I suspect that it's either just a random occurrence; or perhaps that among those who work with electronics, physicists are more likely to answer questions online than actual electronics experts.

Yeah. I haven't noticed that myself.

I suppose that also depends on what you call a "physicist", and what kind of question you ask. If that's something more fundamental about electronics, then that can be true that many engineers may have a problem answering the question properly, whereas a physicist will (but in this case, you may also not really understand the answer.)

But if it's a typical "engineering" question, then I would just plain disagree with the above statement in general. People working in fundamental fields are (on average) a lot less able to deal with engineering/practical questions than engineers.

Of course, that may entirely depend on what kind of questions you consider and the kind of places you visit. Seriously, if you can't find places online where EEs would usually not be able to answer EE questions, but physicists would, then you're probably looking in the wrong places.

This very forum is, IMHO, the very example of the OP's statement being completely wrong in general.

[Mattjd]

I suspect that it's either just a random occurrence; or perhaps that among those who work with electronics, physicists are more likely to answer questions online than actual electronics experts.

Yeah. I haven't noticed that myself.

I suppose that also depends on what you call a "physicist", and what kind of question you ask. If that's something more fundamental about electronics, then that can be true that many engineers may have a problem answering the question properly, whereas a physicist will (but in this case, you may also not really understand the answer.)

But if it's a typical "engineering" question, then I would just plain disagree with the above statement in general. People working in fundamental fields are (on average) a lot less able to deal with engineering/practical questions than engineers.

Of course, that may entirely depend on what kind of questions you consider and the kind of places you visit. Seriously, if you can't find places online where EEs would usually not be able to answer EE questions, but physicists would, then you're probably looking in the wrong places.

This very forum is, IMHO, the very example of the OP's statement being completely wrong in general.

I think on SO you are more likely to get some very heavy theoretical questions where deep knowledge of the math/physics being applied is required. Whereas on this forum you are more likely to get very general application type questions, or more like realization questions. I've found the members of this forum to be good at the application side of things i.e. general parts knowledge and how/where to use those parts. However the deep theory is lacking. From the deep circuit analysis/signal-processing/E&M questions there seems to be less members that can answer those questions but many people that can answer circuit realization type stuff using lots of personal anecdotes/heuristics.

I akin the comparison to say using AoE vs Linear & Nonlinear Circuit (Chua) to learn analog circuit theory. AoE will get you a very hands on experience and teach you real life parts along the way, with lots of heuristics. Chua's book on the other hand will give you deep theory seated in the mathematics and physics of the circuits.

[Seekonk]

A lot of people in electronics are happy just to let things be as long as they work. If you want to know just how educated a person is in electronics, just ask a question about charging capacitors. At least someone in physics will look it up and give the right answer.