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No bullshit guide to math and physics

minireference.com

31–40 of 160 posts

Re: No bullshit guide to math and physics

#31
post #9

I actually clicked "Buy Now" before I realized this was a physical textbook and cancelled. To me, it's almost inexcusable to market this sort of text to this type of audience and not have a digital copy. Shouldn't the barriers to entry be much lower for the author to get this out electronically? I see that the author is responding to comments here, so if you're like me and will buy it if it comes out electronically,…

I have the PDF version ready and will setup a shopping cart (ejunkie?) very soon (like tonight) because several people asked for this. Reading math in print is really good: you can flip back and forth through the pages. How much should the PDF cost? 29$ sounds a bit steep for a PDF no?

I'd just like to say that if the physical book included the PDF (for no extra cost) I'd be all over this!

Re: No bullshit guide to math and physics

#32

I would buy it, but it appears you don't have an ebook version? I can't really keep physical books because they take up too much space (small apartment).

@cameronh90 @veeti @Who828 I hear you guys. I will have the PDF version ready by later tonight. How much should the PDF cost? Is a DRM-free PDF good enough or should I do the .epub format? (in the meantime, check out the free preview: http://cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/miniref/miniref_v3_preview.pdf about one third of the book is there)

> Is a DRM-free PDF good enough or should I do the .epub format?

Definitely epub, makes it just much easier to read, at least on my used platforms (kindle, ipad mini)

Re: No bullshit guide to math and physics

#33

I would buy it, but it appears you don't have an ebook version? I can't really keep physical books because they take up too much space (small apartment).

@cameronh90 @veeti @Who828 I hear you guys. I will have the PDF version ready by later tonight. How much should the PDF cost? Is a DRM-free PDF good enough or should I do the .epub format? (in the meantime, check out the free preview: http://cnd.mcgill.ca/~ivan/miniref/miniref_v3_preview.pdf about one third of the book is there)

Why not offer all three?

Re: No bullshit guide to math and physics

#34
Personally looking forward to the ebook coming out! I was actually just this morning going through and signing up to a bunch of mathematics related Coursera courses. For those interested, quite a few are starting soon:

[Jan 7th] Calculus: Single Variable - https://www.coursera.org/course/calcsing

[Jan 7th] Calculus One - https://www.coursera.org/course/calc1

[Jan 28th] Algebra - https://www.coursera.org/course/algebra

[Jan 28th] Pre-Calculus - https://www.coursera.org/course/precalculus

Re: No bullshit guide to math and physics

#35
post #8

The pitch "textbooks suck" seems so disrespectful and tasteless, it literally makes me avoid that book. Most of my uni textbooks did not suck at all.

I teach college biology, and I've never seen a textbook in my discipline that wasn't written in a soporific and meandering style. Some are worse than others, but I've never seen a textbook I thought was good.

If I needed to fill a gap in my knowledge or learn a new subject I would never resort to a textbook until I had exhausted every other available option.

Re: No bullshit guide to math and physics

#37
post #9

I actually clicked "Buy Now" before I realized this was a physical textbook and cancelled. To me, it's almost inexcusable to market this sort of text to this type of audience and not have a digital copy. Shouldn't the barriers to entry be much lower for the author to get this out electronically? I see that the author is responding to comments here, so if you're like me and will buy it if it comes out electronically,…

I have the PDF version ready and will setup a shopping cart (ejunkie?) very soon (like tonight) because several people asked for this. Reading math in print is really good: you can flip back and forth through the pages. How much should the PDF cost? 29$ sounds a bit steep for a PDF no?

Are you also planning on doing an ebook + physical book combo as well ?

Re: No bullshit guide to math and physics

#39
I read the first 10 pages of the pdf. I'm not sure who you think your target audience is, but this book doesn't seem to serve any of them.

You gloss over huge sections of algebra, and in doing so, ignore incredibly common mistakes that students make. Take a look at the top of page 9, 6 \sqrt{x} - 7 = [...]. You solve that out, but give no reason as to why you got rid of the 7 first, the 6 second, and the radical third. This is not an easy concept, nor is it an academic distinction.

Math might be easy for you, but it probably isn't for your target audience. You're assuming entirely too much about what your readers will know.

Beyond that, some of your math (and math history) has flaws.

"So this is what number meant during the whole middle ages. The notion of 2.5 goats didn’t make any sense to the people of those days. They would have been totally confused by the menu at Rotisserie Romados which offers 1/4 of a chicken."

This is entirely untrue. Even most illiterate peasants knew the basics of fractional parts in the middle ages. 2.5 goats didn't make sense, but 2.5 stone of barley did. The church prohibited usury, but lending still happened, so they had some knowledge of percentages as well. Despite the fall of Rome and the horrible loss of knowledge that followed, math wasn't completely lost. In 725, monks knew enough mathematics to predict the date of Easter (based on the lunar cycle, mind you) years in advance. And math flourished in medieval Islam.

Heck, if my memory serves, fractions were invented in Ancient Sumer, ~4000 years earlier.

"We can move a function f to the left by h units by subtracting h from x and using that as the input argument: g(x) = f(x − h)."

This actually translates the function to the right. This is also where I stopped reading.

I really want this to be good. I love finding wonderful new resources for teaching mathematics. I'm sure you put a serious effort into the text. But I fear your no bullshit guide is just going to scare the shit out of its readers.

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