1, “From the time I could operate a slide rule, I’ve been interested in graphical representations of mathematical relationships.” It’s the insights you can derive from the Smith chart’s graphical representations that keep the chart relevant for today’s instrumentation and design-automation applications. Although calculators and computers can now make short work of the problems the Smith chart was designed to solve, the Smith chart, like other graphical calculation aids (Ref.
1) as a graph-based method of simplifying the complex math (that is, calculations involving variables of the form x + j y ) needed to describe the characteristics of microwave components.
