4 ms·
I find in fundamental sciences, sometime newer editions of book are not better, especially if you have a book where the first edition was like 100 years ago, th
by andi999 6y ago
I find in fundamental sciences, sometime newer editions of book are not better, especially if you have a book where the first edition was like 100 years ago, then it build up a reputation (because it was good), next edition were getting better and better. Then the person who made these new editions retires/dies and somebody incompetent takes over, tries to give the book a 'new' organisation, and it turns into a big mess.
I remember when I asked a prof for a book recommendation, and he warmly recommended a title and author. Got the book from the library and it was a mess. Years later I saw an older edition (which the prof studied as a student) and it was beautiful. If you just flip through the new edition one the flaws are not obvious immediately.
- mhh__ 6y agoThe difference in quality between a (inflation adjusted) £99 book from 1962 and a today is depressingly bad. Print quality, that is, most old textbooks I've read are rubbish pedagogically.
- ajfjrbfbf 6y agoLuckily we now have Library Genesis, which didn't exist in 1962.
- villasv 6y agoThey really are rubbish pedagogically. I remember me trying to grasp physics from Mir (the Soviet publisher) but the book was basically a compendium of hard as hell exercises with barely any explanation. Had a much better time with Tipler’s modern physics book later on.
- andi999 6y agoWell is it about time, or culture? I mean Bergmann Schaefer was always good, wasnt it. Anyhow I am curious what book exactly from Mir did you read? Also one of my co-students was from Russia (he was from a gifted program) and what a bit shocked me that for them to learn mechanics the study Landau-Lifshitz vol 1 at age 14.
- villasv 6y agoBoth, I guess, because they're correlated. Certainly culture plays a big part. The USSR days were intense for science and nationalism. I guess those books were just another reflex of the space race mentality that stuck for a while. I don't remember which Mir books I've read exactly, but I'm almost sure two of them were Irodov's Fundamental Laws of Mechanics and Saveliev's General Course. Maybe I was just too immature, but that thing was way too heavy for a standard high-schooler.
- andi999 6y agoI just had a look. Savelievs looks more like a course for university.
- purplecats 6y agobut how else will you allow for the ministry of truth to scrub out the politically incorrect facts from the face of our societal memories?