Electrical engineering

Electrical Engineering is an extremelydiverse field, and terming it as the “study of electricity” is a gross oversimplification. We basically attempt to answer some of the following questions, under the specified sub-fields (Each number in each sub-field addresses the same problem from different points of view):

Communication:

• How do we build technologies that enable two humans on opposite ends of the Earth talk to each other with quality matching real life conversation, no delays, and when the two people are themselves moving? How do we make sure that it’s secure and others can’t overhear?
• How do we scale the above to allow 7 billion people to converse simultaneously, or listen to famous personalities giving speeches, without any interference, loss of data/quality, or overload?
• How can we enable one to watch live videos on their phone, upload photos with Snapchat Filters for the world to see, be on a call, and simultaneously transfer files from one phone to another?

Power Systems:

• How do we distribute any form of energy to the masses? (All forms, ranging from thermal and nuclear to wind and solar, have to be converted to electrical energy first.) How can we convert the energy effectively without significant losses, and transport it thousands of kilometres away, to millions of people, 24/7?
• Once distributed, how do we convert and use this energy for light, movement, sound etc? It can be used to power up systems ranging from smartphones to entire cities, and this needs to be done effectively.
• Is it possible for us to store this energy and use it at our will, perhaps to run a vehicle or charge a phone on the go?

Systems and Instrumentation:

• How do we extend our sensory capabilities? What if I want to measure the trajectory of the Earth, find out my current location, check the fuel left on my vehicle, see how much power my house has consumed, and much, much more? How can doctors see inside the human body to examine possible defects? How can farmers predict the yield through soil trends and weather forecasts? How can we help self-driving cars to see, phones to hear and speak out, and mobile touchscreens to feel?
• Is it possible for us to interpret and take actions based on what we sense through electrical devices? (Robotics would be one aspect of this.)

Circuits:

• How do we realize all of the above technologies using electrical/electronic components? This includes a huge range of circuits used in the power grid, telecom towers, turbines, vehicles, mobile phones, computers, CT Scanners, vacuum cleaners, hard drives, hair dryers, cameras, large scale servers, lights, and what not.

Solid State Devices and Photonics:

• For building the above circuits in quite a few cases, we need to miniaturize them considerably (Your smartphone needs billions of these, which are almost in a nanometre scale), so how do we do that using materials like silicon, which have special properties?
• Can we also use special materials (such as optic fibres) to transmit data and gigabit speeds, and ensure seamless communication?

This isn’t exhaustive, of course, but this should give you a broad idea of what Electrical Engineering is all about. A basic undergraduate degree would introduce you to most, if not all, of these fields.

As you might have guessed, this requires a ton of mathematics, and here’s my answer on the mathematical tools required in Electrical Engineering: