Bob Pease himself rather candidly put it, "if you stand on a big soapbox and rant and holler, people will often think you know what you are talking about. They stop looking for mistakes and that's a mistake." But those days are gone for good, thankfully. We all are now subject to intense technical scrutiny from peers. Marketing can't engineer truth anymore.

A few years ago I had just released an application note titled "Stresses in Wide-Input DC-DC Converters." In that was featured an extensive reference design table, the same as the one appearing in the Appendix of this book. Previously, this very App Note had managed to morph itself into a cover story article in the magazine Power Electronics (formerly PCIM). I was still terribly nervous were all my equations right? I had tried triple-checking each of them, plugging them into Mathcad for sanity point checks, comparing that against hand calculations, and so on, but you never know!

If you have been around for some time, you would know that we all make horrible mistakes. But some of our mistakes even find their way undetected into major magazines (and books). And then, not only do they sometimes stay that way, but maybe win an award or two, as well! One hilarious example of this is in Figure 12-1. I just happen to know the history behind this one, and it makes for interesting reading. One evening my clever colleague showed up in my cube,...