The OPEN SOURCE MATH BOOK.

[vyperlinux]

This is the first time i ever talked about this ideal, I am posting it here, i want to get a group of people, 100+ to write a open source better then collage grade math book, That covers basic math, fractions, algebra and even advanced calculus, Maybe one day replacing the over priced collage books or high school books, with a easy to understand and very detailed book that can be downloaded, The book can be downloaded as one book or split into many books, or turned into a wiki, Maybe use some kind of wiki software to build it, then turn it into a book? pdf,..

If i can get 50 to 100 people to write one page pre month, or edit pages, then we will be getting somewhere,

Here is some open source books that might be used to build a foundation on.. http://www.opensourcemath.org/

Anyone else think this is a good ideal? do you have your own ideals?


About me, Well, I was basically kicked out of school in second grade, So i never got an education, Never learned math, I don't even know my abc... I got hard n heavy into computers in the early 1990s, everything i know is from the computer.

I need to get my GED, i have 10 math books, just about all of them suck!, hard to understand, or missing stuff, or moves to next topic too fast or poorly written. etc etc, Even the collage books suck, They expect you to buy more of there books just to cover whats missing in the main book or download some crappy software, etc!!!!

[woodsmoke]

Well I spend the first week on d=m / v and 2= 6 / 3 and the units for same. The other instructors chide for " wasting time" but I finish covering more material and the students score higher on the exit exam.

You should read the Cathedral and the Bazaar.

Woodsmoke

[Cornova]

I think it's a nice idea. I'd love to have a set of comprehensive books that are focused on understanding and go up to say Calculus. You might want to also take advantage of companion software for things like memorizing multiplication tables. I know the Khan Academy has or at least had this program where you could say, start with basic arithmetic problems and progress as the software gives you your correct/incorrect percentage. It seemed like a very useful learning tool but one that you could install on your own PC for your kids to use would be much better than wondering if some web site will abandon it or ruin the function or whatever else. I bookmarked your site.

[woodsmoke]

There is also the much beloved Calculus Made Easy by Sylvanus P. Thompson.

Here is a linky to the public domain pdf.



woodkeptitinsidetheplayboythatwasinsidethecalculus booksmoke.

[GreyGeek]

The best book on basic calculus that I've read (and assigned to my students) is described here.

It is in two parts, each its own paperback. Besides being very explanatory, it is also very funny!

EDIT: Apparently he's combined the two books into one large size paperback. You can get it for $28 from his website: http://www.profemc2.com/

Or, you can pay $62 at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Prof-McSquared.../dp/0971462402

I gave my copies to my son, who holds a degree in math.

[woodsmoke]

Thanks GG, I WILL post this at the college, for both the bio classes and physical science!

Tres goodness!

woodsmoke

[sealbhach]

I think calculus is best explained with video, like this one here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL-rL511JGg

I find it much more accessible.

[woodsmoke]

I quite agree on the videos and the reason is quite simple, as far as the student is concerned, and that is becase many of the things addressed with calculus are "changing/moving" and that is not able to be shown in actuality with a book picture, which, is, by definition, static.

Good post, I've watched him before and had forgotten about him.

woodsmoke

[eggbert]

Interesting concept. I think it is a good idea. I kind of think the textbook industry is a racket. I remember paying outrageous prices even for used textbooks when I was going to college.

Not only that, but they pushed a political agenda. Even in elementary school (early 80s) I remember my books being chocked full of a bunch of multi-culti politically correct BS. Even at then as a kid, I felt there was something odd about the. Kind of like they were always trying to make me feel bad about something. I can only imagine what today's textbooks are like.

I bet the teacher's unions and textbook rackateers go hand-in-hand though, so while it's a good idea, good luck getting anyone to use it.

[GreyGeek]

The BEST online calculus videos (free) are, IMO, at the Kahn Academy. Here is one introducing differential calculus.
http://www.khanacademy.org/math/calc...and-usain-bolt

His videos takes a person from Kindergarten math through Linear Algebra, plus various topics and standardized tests. Besides Math his site also includes videos about Science, Finance and the Humanities.

I've yet to see a video on which he keeps an inset of his face. All you hear is his voice and you see his writing.

[woodsmoke]

Eggbert wrote:

Kind of like they were always trying to make me feel bad about something. I can only imagine what today's textbooks are like.

They are indeed "worse".

And the "enviornmental" and "history" books are a massive flagellation of "anything not liberal".

A) an example of this is that my first environmental science book had two pictures, one of a "simple Buddhist family" with their RELIGIOUS items, sitting in front of them ON A BLANKET..." and espousing that they were "caring for the environmet" while a "White Anglo Saxon Christian family" showed the man in a cowboy hat with all of the stuff that people in the U.S. have and a prominent BIBLE.... " saying that the family was "destroying the environment". The Bible was prominently displayed several times in contexts about how the U.S. was evil for using "too many" resources.

A generic image of a "Hummer" was portrayed as destroying the planet while.... a Mercedes Benz was portrayed as good! I mean compare the mileages....but anything made in "Europe" is WAAAY better than anything made in the U.S. as far as text book writers are concerned.

FORTUNATELY......Global Waming has finally been removed from the latest textbooks....even the lefty text writers couldn't keep that myth going and keep any semblence of credibility.

b) My laboratory assistant, a very perspicacious young lady, took a "history of poetry" class. The class NEVER MENTIONED a single poet that was not presently alive and also....publishing his/her poetry online, notice not being paid for the poetry. I looked at the web sites, and there was NObody visiting them except a few college kids.

I showed her Ferlengetti's Cony Island of the Mind and some poetry from "Black Voices" and the teacher mentioned NONE of it, no historical poets either...

and this is a "history of poetry" class.

c) The biology textbooks are dropping the maligning of the Catholic Church for "burning Mendel's books" when one man, by name of Klacell, burned them, (the Catholic Church later reinstated Mendel) because many SCIENTISTS were asking why the Lysenko "genetics" which basically ruined Communist Russia's agriculture had been DROPPED from the biology books, my High School Bio book had Lysenko in it.

So now.....the students are not informed about EITHER the "right" burning books or the "left" burning books because Lysenko is an embarrasment for the left.

d) Conjugating verbs. The verbs are no longer conjugated "I, you, he, she it, We, you, they".

They are now conjugated "I, you they". in many if not most text books.

This is not because of "lazy students' it is because the teachers cannot control 7th grade BOYS when the VERY LOUDLY "slur" he, she, it" into "he.....sheee###t".

THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH has been changed to AVOID the problems with 7th grade boys....

WHOLE TEXTBOOKS......think about that....

and the liberals, along with the conservatives malign "education"......well which group was the ones who said that "children should not be placed in ANY situation which can reduce their self esteem...."? And then the kids ran with it and go fu@#$N% nuts in the classroom.

e) The history books completey go past Lysenko, they also go completely past the U.S. GOVERNMENT forcing China to sell opium so that opium would be CHEAP in the U.S. and thus the reason for the Boxer Rebellion. AND WHICH "party" advocates" decriminalizing "marijuana"? The model goes back over a hundred years.... one group wants to get the druggies going so that they can get their votes or their money and the other group says, hey if we are all druggies, who is going to "be" the country?

f) NO, science class, history class, or human health class discusses the "Spanish Flu" of the 1920s which killed more people than bullets during WWI, when we are very close to a REAL PANDEMIC... of avain flu or swine flue and now MRSA.... because "they don't want to needlessly "inflame" the less intellegent people.

I could go on and on, and on, but am so sick and tired of all the policical correctness and the CHANGING of history.... in the text books....

And what is the "justificaton" for changing the history?

One obscure statement from back in the sixties....that "history is the history that is written by historians"....so the history book writers can

CHANGE HISTORY.

aaarrraaagghhh

sorry, for the rant.

woodsmoke

[HalationEffect]

What's wrong with de-criminalising marijuana? IMO it should never have been criminalised in the first place... it's less addictive and less harmful than either alcohol or tobacco, after all.

[GreyGeek]

The Federal Government holds a patent that makes 21 claims on the medical use of Cannabis, yet the FDA and the DOJ claim that Cannabis has no "proven" medical value. IF so many people weren't in prison for using Cannabis then perhaps UNICOR wouldn't have so many prisoners to work for it while paying them from 23 cents to $1.15 per hour. My first job out of HS paid $1.14, in 1959. Unicor's products are only sold to Federal agencies, but they encompass a lot of areas.

But, if you don't want prisoners setting around in cells all day weight lifting and watching TV where would you employ them that wouldn't hurt some part of the economy and help other parts? Just depends on whose ox is being gored.

[HalationEffect]

There you go - the solution to the offshoring / outsourcing problem... make almost everything illegal, and throw almost everyone in prison as a result. Then you'd have a huge workforce who work for less than anyone else in the world!

Also... good grief, they are using convicts to process credit card transactions, and nobody thought that was a bad idea?? The mind boggles.

[Qqmike]

This is platitudinous, cliche, and in the USA seems hopeless (thanks to all our fellow not-bright-but-religious-right citizens), but here goes again ...
We have serous, dangerous, violent crimes surging everywhere, along with insidious gangbanger activities and who knows what other threatening activities (organized crime, skinheads, and such). Yet we have police personnel chasing individual nickel-bag reefer suckers and prostitutes. Makes no sense. (Yes, the latter poses a public health threat, but legalize it and require certain health department checks/standards. Anyone caught hooking w/o proper papers gets fined and forced to register and be checked out.) And so on.

That's what went on in another Sin City (Terre Haute, Indiana). Whores everywhere, on the street and in houses. BUT, the police knew all about them, by name, as did the local health department which required weekly checks.

As for grass, booze is legal (and extremely dangerous to health and to society), yet an individual can't keep a small bag at home for personal use.
Just makes no sense.