Virginia Begins Open-Source Physics Textbook

eldavojohn writes "The Commonwealth of Virginia has issued a request for contributions to an open source physics textbook (or 'flexbook' they termed it). They are partnering with CK-12 to make this educational textbook under the Creative Commons by Attribution Share-Alike license."

Comments

Hell Yes

[zappepcs]

It's about time, can't wait to see the result and more of the same for other subjects. Education for everyone, free-ish. This is how it should be.

Re:Hell Yes

[Archangel Michael]

How the hell are we suppose to sit in Ivory Towers and look down upon the commoners if education is free from us political and educational elites?

I mean, we need to make sure that people are certified by a piece of paper to prove that they've bowed before the altar of Education properly.

This includes requiring each new student to buy overpriced textbooks, brand new each year. Please, won't anyone think of the poor professors and teachers???

Re:Hell Yes

[baggins2001]

But the downside is who is going to do the final edit. Should Maxwell's equations be included? Should a whole chapter be devoted to an outlandish thesis on why it is physically impossible for evolution to occur?
The reason I have concern is that in our state, the selection committee for books didn't have a single person with any type of degree in physics. So where are they going to find editors.
I would prefer they used Sears and Zemansky College version, but am afraid that schools couldn't afford it.
I have never looked at Halliday and Resnick Fundamental version, but that may also be good.

Re:Hell Yes

[zappepcs]

There is a common axiom that should be in play here IMO, if a quorum of recognized physicists agree that a topic should be covered for a specific level of understanding, then it should be covered.

A wiki would work if it could be voted on, and topic frozen for a year once voted and approved, or that subject page moved to a reference site which could be used as the text for one or more years.

Physics 101 typically covers certain topics, more advanced classes cover more and more in depth. The trick is making that material available and flexible as they say. There are no great arguments about creationism in physics classes that I know of, but creationism is a religious principle and should be covered in theology class. NOTE to self: that page should be a redirect to bible.com.

If actual physicists and hobbyists can agree on material, then you have more intelligence working on the problem than currently being used to select texts... more or less.

Great Idea!

[HaeMaker]

I hope it won't be Wikipedia style...

Web 2.0 as a force for good

[pzs]

This is a good idea. Base it on a standard description of each concept like an old fashioned text book, but also allow:

- Discussion threads with students and teachers. (moderated, Slashdot style?)

- Contributed examples, again by students and teachers. You could do something like the PHP documentation, where the best contributed examples are prominently displayed at the bottom of the relevant page.

- Interactive tools to illustrate particular concepts.

- Copious linkage to similar resources.

A successful project like this could easily spawn similar projects for the other sciences.

Re:Calculus, or no-calculus?

[Thelasko]

Physics without calculus is a bit pointless.

Woh! Step down from your high horse. There is plenty to learn about basic physics that doesn't involve calculus. You must simply make the correct assumptions. All the calculus is doing is explaining why the algebra works under some assumptions and not others. Even in four years of engineering school, I rarely used calculus.

Keep in mind that a derivative can be expressed as a simple difference (subtraction) and an integral can be expressed as a simple summation.

For example, Newton's second law only requires calculus if the acceleration of the system is changing. For practical classroom purposes, acceleration due to gravity is constant. No calculus required. (sort of)

High school physics is teaching that the world can be described by math. The math that they will learn in physics without calculus will greatly help them understand calculus in the future. High school students don't need proofs, they need application. Application keeps kids interested.

Re:OSS Textbooks kick serious...

[PitaBred]

But you know what makes a ton of money? Putting out a new revision of a standard textbook with only a few sections moved around, and all the questions renumbered, so you sell the same content for hundreds of dollars all over again to a new bunch of suckers! This works because you give the professors that assign it a little bit of a kickback, as well as a free copy to get it as the new standard textbook for the course. I can't understand why anyone would be upset by that, or feel as if they're being ripped off.

Re:And this is why...

[sp00n3r]

Physicists just can't agree on even the most basic aspects of their science.

And who are you to make such a (ridiculous) claim?