Filter "poles" and 1s and zeros..

[cyborg0 at GlobalEyes.net]

I have been enlightened by a wonderful old book I found sitting around
in a pile of books at work..
Electronic Designers handbook by landee, davis, and albrecht, Mcgraw
Hill, 1958

It was absolutely amazing .. I actually found a book that explained
poles!
I have never gotten a good answer as to how poles work until now..

One thing I dont understand is why they wont teach laplace transform
theory until you get past calculus 2.. it doesnt seem to need anything
except a little intro to calc to be understandable..

As I see it, it seems that once you set up the equation, you then look
for values at which the equation becomes asymptotic. This is a pole.. a
zero occurs at a value where the equation equals zero..no problem.. Of
course, with more elements, your equation can become huge..

It seems as though your poles generally occur at values which make the
circuit prone to oscillation. But of course, this depends on your
feedback loop path..

Now, what I gather is the possibility to tune the feedback loop itself
to add another element of control.  quite literally, your feedback loop
could be a sort of filter..

I finally understand those long posts about poles and zeros and the
different controlling elements of a filter! (well, somewhat anyway)

It is very interesting.. basically what you guys were saying is that to
be a pole, it needs to have a  freq cutoff, positive feedback and gain.
(and, to self oscillate, it needs an unstable point). So, therefore, for
each pole you could possibly control each of these parameters
seperately! Finally, I can follow those posts a little..

OK, but, for example, how would you add control to each of these
elements in a diode or transistor ladder circuit? OR,  would you have to
build four seperate 1 pole ladder filters and serial link them to be
able to do this? Im just curious, because after learning about all this
power, I would like to experiment with it..

If anything is wrong in here, please correct me..I could use some help.

Rob