EE101 – Electrical Engineering Basics

From Ohm’s Law to AC, resonance, and waves – without the heavy math.

What EE101 Covers

This mini-series walks through the core ideas an electrical engineer lives with every day:

• How voltage, current, and resistance relate in simple DC circuits.
• How real components behave when signals become time-varying (AC).
• How inductors and capacitors lead to impedance and frequency-dependent behavior.
• How combining L and C gives you tuned circuits that prefer one frequency.
• How this all connects to waves, frequency (f), wavelength (λ), and the speed of light (c).

It is meant to be readable by non-engineers, curious learners, or anyone who wants to see what lies underneath power lines, radios, and high-speed electronics.

The Core Formula

It all starts with Ohm’s Law:
V = I × R
Where:

• V – voltage (volts, V)
• I – current (amperes, A)
• R – resistance (ohms, Ω)

In AC, this generalizes to:
V = I × Z
where Z is impedance, the frequency-dependent version of resistance that includes resistors, inductors, and capacitors.

Key Symbols You’ll See

• V – voltage (volts)
• I – current (amps)
• R – resistance (ohms, Ω)
• Z – impedance (general AC “resistance”)
• L – inductance (henries, H)
• C – capacitance (farads, F)
• f – frequency (hertz, Hz)
• ω – angular frequency (ω = 2πf)
• λ – wavelength (meters)
• v or c – wave speed / speed of light (m/s)

The Four EE101 Chapters

Chapter 1
Ohm’s Law & DC Circuits

Why V, I, and R are written the way they are, what a basic battery–resistor circuit does, and how inductors and capacitors behave in DC steady state (inductor ≈ short, capacitor ≈ open).

Read: Ohm’s Law & DC »
Chapter 2
AC Circuits & Impedance

How AC turns simple resistance into impedance Z, why inductor impedance grows with frequency, why capacitor impedance shrinks with frequency, and how DC is just the f = 0 special case.

Read: AC & Impedance »
Chapter 3
Tuned Circuits & Resonance

What happens when inductor and capacitor are combined, how resonance occurs at f₀ = 1 / (2π√(LC)), and how LC circuits let radios, filters, and oscillators “lock onto” specific frequencies.

Read: Resonance & LC »
Chapter 4
Waves, Frequency & the Speed of Light

How frequency (f), wavelength (λ), and speed (v or c) fit together (v = f × λ), and how circuit behavior gradually morphs into wave behavior at higher frequencies.

Read: Waves & Frequency »

How this fits into AIMindWeave

EE101 is part of a broader idea: take topics that are usually buried in textbooks and explain them in clear, conversational language, one concept at a time.

You can read these pages directly, or use them as background for future AIMindWeave content on:

• Power electronics and grids
• Radio and wireless systems
• High-speed digital design
• And how modern computing and communications all rely on the same underlying physics