This is where he lost me too, and it wasn’t until many years later that I saw good explanations of them. I loved to look at this book and still have mine, but the truth is that the pedagogy isn’t strong in it. Mims is a good electrical engineer, but he’s not a great teacher. Look to the first Make: Electronics book to see how this should be done (but, ironically, see below).
This is so, so common among experts in a narrow field. They are smart in their area so they assume they must be smart about all other stuff too. Throw in a big dash of white male privilege and you have a recipe for all sorts of denial and quackery. Any time you see those lists of climate change denial “scientists” it’s always a bunch of mechanical engineers and theoretical physicists. Being intelligent and educated does not ensure a person is a rational critical thinker, unfortunately. Heck, there are famous, very accomplished scientists who are young-earth-creationists (who will rationalize all day at you about why their position is reasonable). Our ability to compartmentalize cognitive dissonance is amazing.
Similar to your story, I wrote to the author of the first Make: Electronics book to thank him, and exchanged a few emails. Turns out it he is also a climate denying anti-government crackpot. This is why we can’t have nice things.
