National Academies Release Over 4,000 Free Science Books 119
Shipud writes "The National Academies Press are offering all their books for free in PDF format. These are all the publications of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council. Lots of great stuff there, and now for free."
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That was published in a real book?
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The publisher's page: http://www.bjupress.com/about/look-inside-science-4.php [bjupress.com]
You can view some sample pages.
And cry.
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We're talking about people who believe that some long-dead bastard child of a divine being is going to be waiting after death to bring them to eternal happy land in the sky. Some of them gather each week so a guy in a robe can magic crackers in to the flesh of this guy so they can eat it.
With that foundation I'm more surprised that people are as sane and competent as they appear to be.
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I know you're trying to be a smartass, but as a faithful and devout Catholic, I can say you understand Catholic beliefs better than a lot of Catholics themselves do. Make of that what you will.
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Cheers. Yeah, it was a bit if a cheap dig. Been off the smokes, so the mood is a bit flakey.
I wish people would learn a bit more about the past 2000 odd years of Christianity and Church history - if only to better understand what they're believing in. I'm in Ireland, where the majority are Catholics who think that the Council of Trent is a place in England where people go to complain when their bins haven't been collected. Shame.
No parody needed... (Score:2)
Read something very similar from a local (Bosnian) version of a religious "textbook".
Only this one was about plants (as in trees) being food-factories.
The fun part: science has no fucking clue how do "the juices" get pumped from the ground, up through the trunk and into the branches and fruit.
"There are several theories, but none of them have been able to provide the answer." [google.com]
That particular one is from a Muslim "textbook". Others are not much different. It's a built-in defect.
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For balance it's better to read a bit more of the book. Why would a serious science book attempt to ascribe a reason to the moon's creation, let alone claim that it was created by God so that we would have light?
It's a pretty amusing attempt to shoe-horn Jesus in to science by over-playing gaps in our knowledge, and in places being downright dishonest. All standard stuff from the playbook of the liars for Jesus.
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I read the explanation page of the author and then reread the page posted to imgur.com. I have to say that it is a piss poor attempt to make the original publication sound reasonable after having been called out for trying teaching absolute non-sense to 4th graders. The explanation page is thoughtful. If only as much thought went into the publication of the supposed textbook on basic science.
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Unfortunately, yes:
http://www.bjupress.com/about/electricity-is-a-mystery.php [bjupress.com]
Oddly enough combining Christianity with science resulted in a science book that'll leave kids thinking that Jesus is busy each night towing the Moon in to the sky so we'll have a nice bit of light.
They have a point in that we may not have full explanations, and have to infer the existence of something from its effects rather than direct observation, but in the context of this book it's pretty clear they're a bunch of religious nut
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Yes. The reference to Psalms is a bit odd, although not unexpected given the context. Even accepting that this book is intended for kids it's still amazingly over simplified. Electricity in this book could easily be the force from the Star Trek universe. Reading this one would think that electricity's magically appearing in bulbs without anyone knowing anything about its origin.
Contrary to what the book says, we know far more than how to bring electricity forth. I'm not sure if they're serious there or if i
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Even accepting that this book is intended for kids it's still amazingly over simplified.
You're too kind. It's plain wrong, as is their CYA explanation on their website. They point out that we can't see electricity (true) and infer that therefore nobody can understand electricity (false). I mean, "We cannot even say where electricity comes from. Some scientists think that the sun may be the source of most electricity. Others think that the movement of the earth produces some of it." There's no way to recontextualize that to make it anything other than just plain wrong. As you say, it's basicall
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Gold.
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Oddly enough combining Christianity with science resulted in a science book that'll leave kids thinking that Jesus is busy each night towing the Moon in to the sky so we'll have a nice bit of light.
Oh, dunno about that. I remember when, as a kid send to Sunday School where they gave this sort of "explanation" of the moon, my immediate thought was to ask why God had put the moon in an orbit that was only visible on average for half the night time, and spent half its time in the day sky where it's not needed. You'd think that, if God is all-powerful, He'd have arranged to have the moon stay exactly opposite the sun in the sky, so that it was always full and always shining at night. Doesn't that see
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Oddly enough combining Christianity with science resulted in the history of Western Civilization.
There, FTFY.
Just because a lot of current Christians (e.g., the Fundamentalists) have some weird and fairly novel ideas that Christianity and science are at odds with each other doesn't mean its true. That isn't to say there haven't been issues along the way (like Galileo) but the reason Western Civilization totally took off, while many other societies stagnated or declined is precisely because Christianity, sp
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On a related note, are any of these books suitable for teaching science to high school students?
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Something to do with fucking magnets.
Are any of these actually useful? (Score:1)
Re:Are any of these actually useful? (Score:5, Funny)
ohhh, poor baby. So they don't have "The Idiots Guide to Mathematics" for you?
Looks like the idiot's guide to not being a douche wasn't available either. :-\
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Looks like the idiot's guide to not being a douche wasn't available either. :-\
Nor was the idiot's guide to being original.
Nor was the idiot's guide to being original.
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Looks like the idiot's guide to not being a douche wasn't available either. :-\
Nor was the idiot's guide to being original.
Nor was the idiot's guide to being original.
Nor was the idiot's guide to being original.
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There is such a thing?
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Nope, I looked.
But seriously, 4000 books on science, most on an advanced level, and this guy whines because he couldn't get his coursebook in basic math. That's called whining.
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Have you actually looked through the catalog? There really are few, if any, books on advanced math or science. They are primarily policy recommendations.
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yes I have looked, but not through the math book selection, not my field.
There are quite useful books there in the multiple fields in which I have an interest, including research methodology, research ethics, cognitive neuroscience, and more.
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"Mathematics Learning in Early Childhood:Paths Toward Excellence and Equity"
"Reengineering the Survey of Income and Program Participation"
"Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities"
"Strengthening the Linkages Between the Sciences and the Mathematical Sciences"
are "advanced" books on par with the texts of Walter Rudin, John Milnor, Georges de Rham, Shiing-Shen Chern, and many others, and then, when you
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ooooh... you know how profanity. Wow. Impressive.
No, mathematics is not my field, I'm limited at statistics and research methodology. Not very cool, sorry. But let us examine this a little.
the original post is:
"re any of these actually useful? (Score:1)
by larry bagina (561269) Alter Relationship on Saturday June 04, @20:54 (#36338036) Journal
Eg, looking for a math book and all I see is shit like "Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty""
Se
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And I do know that the books I found in my own fields are relatively advanced (useful, in any case) and in some cases showing some bleeding edge work which is what is and will be useful to industry in the coming years.
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I dunno. I checked it out and there are many books within my fields there. There are books on computer development, interface development, interface analysis, science methods, aeronautics, etc, as well as general books on methodology.
Quite a few developers here on /., and quite a few scientists.
While you are absolutely right that this news may not be exciting to the general public, it seems perfect for a sizable part of slashdot readers.
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I took a quick look, and saw several that appealed to me - indeed, appealed enough to convince me that it was worth registering.
Heck, if even one person reads something which they would not otherwise have read, I'd consider this a success.
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There are repositories of math books on the net you can download. They have every level of math. From beginners algebra and calc all the way to differential geometry and graduate analysis texts. But are you really prepared to read something like Rudin on your own?
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Agreed. It looks like these are all (or at least mostly) "think-tanky" fluff works for PHB and 'policy-makers'. Calling them "science books" seems to be overly generous.
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Look at the NRC animal nutrition series. Very useful and definitely not for PHbs. I will be downloading "Nutrient Requirements of Horses".
I don't think there is a volume on nutrient requirements of policy-makers, though. They just get whatever is in the public trough.
Re:Are any of these actually useful? (Score:4, Interesting)
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That's cause it's in the general "math, chemistry, and science" category which is full of books that apply to all three. You have to go to the specific categories to get the good stuff.
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Err, make that "math, chemistry, and physics", which is even more broad.
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Err, make that "less broad." I really shouldn't have had that last coffee; it just makes my submit button spontaneously pressable.
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Eg, looking for a math book and all I see is shit like "Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty"
Does this have any numbers on how many /.ers sitting in mom's basement are male?
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Whose mom, and how big is that basement?
Rgds
Damon
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Sure one on Chem Lab safety & another on how to use & care for lab animals (& I've only been looking for 9 min's...)
Not exactly "free". (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't "Free as in Freedom" it's "Free as in Promotional".
FTFA:
Printed books will continue to be available for purchase through the NAP website and traditional channels. The free PDFs are available exclusively from the NAP’s website, http://www.nap.edu/ [nap.edu], and remain subject to copyright laws. PDF versions exist for the vast majority of NAP books. Exceptions include some books that were published before the advent of PDFs; books from the Joseph Henry Press imprint; and in cases where contractually prohibited, such as reference books in the Nutrient Requirements of Domestic Animals series.
So, you can download them to your computer, but you can't (legally) make a copy for your friend... This isn't the free as in "land of the free" that I grew up learning about... seems like a trap to me. "How did you know that without ever buying our book or downloading our PDF? You must be a sea faring rapist and murderous theif!"
Let me know when it's released under a CC license, then I'll think about downloading it.
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Did you type that comment from a Lemote Yeeloong? If not, your BIOS is in shackles and you should be looked down upon the same way you look down upon others for downloading this material.
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So, you can download them to your computer, but you can't (legally) make a copy for your friend...
No, but you can point your friend to the website where he/she can download it, which is almost as good.
But I have to echo what a previous poster has said: most of these books look useless to ordinary people. They don't seem to be textbooks so much as policy recommendations. Has anyone found any useful books in this collection?
Re:Not exactly "free". (Score:4, Insightful)
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"At what point did knowing what recommendations are being made to congress become useless for the general public?"
Somewhere around the start. Since the general public has little or no real influence on the actions of congress but rather only influence how to spin their choices at election time there is no particular reason for the general public to pay any attention.
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At the point when congress stopped giving two hoots what the public thinks and just going along with whoever suppplies the most hookers and cocaine.
Re:Not exactly "free". (Score:5, Insightful)
I did. Lost Crops of Africa vol 1-3 and Lost Crops of the Incas. Informative, although definitely a narrow topic. When you think science books you think more like textbooks with broad overviews and lots of information, which these certainty are not. If you're deep into a specific area, some of these will be useful. If you're just some normal person looking to learn more about something,well, these aren't exactly Light and Matter. I found a number of things on genetic engineering next to them, but skimming them, these are scientific, and they're books, but I wouldn't exactly call them science books, more like reports on the state of the science and policy ideas & suggestions than anything. I can see how these would be useless to the average reader.
Re:narrow topic (Score:2)
(With light parody of one of the texts)
The Slashdot Community forgets its own arguments over time.
This is one particular publisher releasing its archive. It's Academia - the stuff that used to cost $200 per book, which made us all furious at the Book Scam. Now they have released every single one of their texts for download, and the whole point is that you can convert it to text from the PDF. Every one of these can become a podcast. If you and five buddies like it/them, you just have a LAN party and you each
Re:Not exactly "free". (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't exactly call them science books
They said "science books", not "popular science books".
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These aren't free books. I paid for them via tax dollars. I have every right to demand they be PD and the world would be a better place if everyone else did as well.
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+1 funny.
I've actually encountered people who think this way for real.
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"Boohoohoo, why don't people give me everything I want, right away, for free, in the format I demand, no strings attached!"
Have you ever heard that you're not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth? If people give you free shit, you don't accuse them of being devious bastards laying a trap. You say "thanks" or "thanks, but no thanks".
Let me know when it's released under a CC license, then I'll think about downloading it.
I am sure they await your approval with bated breath.
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I assume that you are aware that all these books were produced at US Government expense?
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What gives you that idea? The National Academies are private organizations and the books they publish do not all result from federally funded research. Even so, the only publications that are automatically public domain are those of US government employees, regardless of the funding source.
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So, you can download them to your computer, but you can't (legally) make a copy for your friend...
Where did you get that idea? Ever heard of 'fair use'. Even if you decide that giving a copy to a friend would not fall under fair use then all hell breaks loose if you tell your friend to go download it from the same (free, openly available) site that you downloaded it from?
This isn't the free as in "land of the free" that I grew up learning about... seems like a trap to me. "How did you know that without ever buying our book or downloading our PDF? You must be a sea faring rapist and murderous theif!"
Who pooped on your doughnut today? What kind of trap can you make up over a freely downloadable, not DRM'd or locked PDF (other than it's a PDF, this being Slashdot and all).
You've been snorting too much of that Stalhlman stuff.
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Their stern language is mostly Anti-Troll. It's about making sure that idiots don't doctor up copies that then somehow get viral exposure thus leaving them to counter 50 media calls about "why does your book say that?"
They encourage pointing friends to direct links. You can make download-link pointer pages. If your friend wants a hard copy, you "make it for him" as a service transaction. "I'll make you a copy from Kinkos for the price of the materials".
Gift horse's mouth (Score:3)
So, you can download them to your computer, but you can't (legally) make a copy for your friend... This isn't the free as in "land of the free" that I grew up learning about... seems like a trap to me. "How did you know that without ever buying our book or downloading our PDF? You must be a sea faring rapist and murderous theif!"
More evidence for the theory that no good deed goes unpunished. The +5 informative is just sad.
Re:good deed (Score:3)
You're on to something.
You can either browse them on the site by topic, or even play the fun lottery game I found called "guess the ID number". I'll get you guys started:
8 10 11 13 15 19 21 22 25 30 35 40 41 54 55 56 58 61 63 75 80 81 86 91 92 100 101.
They made the books absolutely as clean as they could, no DRM, it extracts to text for podcasting, and so on. However we have a surprising number of people in the thread under their logged in names saying "meh, it's not a torrent so I can't share it".
We have a
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Unfortunately, I can see where a comment like "no torrent?!?" makes sense - someone appreciates that it is being shared, and would like to help take a small fraction of the load/cost away from the source, even if they never plan to use the materials themselves.
For example, I have no plan on upgrading to Ubuntu 11.04, but I torrented it to upload 20gb of each cd on the release day - I have the bandwidth/resources, and it was a way of giving back. Not planning on running Slackware again anytime soon, but I t
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1. They can prevent people from modifying the originals (eg: for political propoganda).
2. They can still make a few bucks from people who want to order the hard copies for whatever reason.
3. Attracts people to their website.
Besides, even though technically you can't copy them I very much doubt they care if you do so in good faith.
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Since I paid for these books via tax dollars, let me know when it is public domain and I'll think about downloading it.
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So, nothing stops you from sending copies of LINKS to anyone you think might like to download some NAP books...
nor should you have any problems publishing web pages of just titles, links (to NAP's site, for each book) & maybe review comments on some or all of the listed books.
That's freedom enough for me!
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" all their books for free in PDF format."
It's merely all it's books in PDF format for free, which is a far cry form 'all their books'
I also can't see a way to list all the free books either (maybe I missed it). You have to go to a book you want and see if it is available in PDF'
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This gives more citations, - i.e. it's a win-win! (Score:4, Interesting)
This gives more citations, - i.e. it's a win-win!
What do you cite if you're on a tight budget? The free stuff, not necessarily the most "relevant" stuff (said the cynic, in me, too); here, the relevant stuff may be cited in the free stuff, so why not, the logical chain is there.
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Studies & Policy Recommendations (Score:1)
A wonderful trough in which to wallow (Score:2)
Yes, these books are useful.
Coming from academia there are some rather obscure subjects
there, but why not read about the handling and management of
chemicals? That which is not common is still useful. I daresay
that skipping over the more "odd" things is an inditement of the
educational system. Reading that which doesn't interest you at
first is a great way to learn new things, just as reading political
views you don't agree with might broaden your ideas.
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Their server is decent too. Considering they survived a slashdotting without blinking, I'm already up to a gig with about 300 books.
In other news. 10,000 bibles were given away ... (Score:1)
Keeping the opposition about 5,000 leaps of faith ahead.
--
New Expletive: IS
Torrent? (Score:1)
Please won't someone download all of these and post a torrent?
If your research is covered, this is very helpful. (Score:2)
Finally, A Cure for Insomnia Found (Score:2)
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"*There are a small number of older reports that never had PDF files and therefore, those reports are not available for download. In addition, there are contractual requirements that preclude NAP from offering some PDF files for free. Those include ... books in the Joseph Henry Press imprint."
Your example is in the Joseph Henry imprint.
Cool! That saved me some money. (Score:2)
I immediately found a book for $99.95 and downloaded it. Saved almost $100!
I'll come back tomorrow and see if I can find five more for $99.95, so I can buy a new laptop.
- yep I learned logical reasoning from the music industry.
Are they under a CC license? (Score:2)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html [pdfernhout.net] ... Foundations, other grantmaking agencies handling public tax-exempt dollars, and charitable donors need to consider the implications for their grantmaking or donation policies if they use a now obsolete charitable model of subsidizing proprietary publishing and proprietary research. In order to improve the effective
"An Open Letter to All Grantmakers and Donors On Copyright And Patent Policy In a Post-Scarcity Society
Meh (Score:2)
It requires a registered account to download the PDFs. And, to be honest, I wasn't much excited about the titles either. Are there any gems that are really worth making an account for?
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> Are there any gems that are really worth making an account for?
Not for you.
Re:account (Score:2)
I think I saw a "continue as guest" option but really, just sign up and get some street cred in the academic circles.
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Actually, it doesn't. You can download as a guest. It will ask for your email and name, but as far as I can tell, it doesn't do anything to verify them.
Motion Mountain (Score:2)
Lots of these are quite specialised. For a broad intro to physics (up to general relativity and quantum theory), try Motion Mountain:
http://motionmountain.net/ [motionmountain.net]
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Alternate suggestion: Go through the MIT open courseware physics trio. Also, watch any class with Walter Lewman (sp). The chap is a rock star.
-eag
NAP should use Bit Torrent to offer their books... (Score:2)
- lower download data costs, &
- they'd have another form of feedback on how popular each title is
(eg, by the # of [seeds &] peers each attracts, & for how long...)
(Of course, in time, they'll still need to be the main source... so, it could be a short-term savings.)
PS If they don't... perhaps people will soon start put together packages of NAP books, for BT distrib'n...?
Congrats! (Score:1)