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National Academies Release Over 4,000 Free Science Books
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."
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. :-\
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
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/, 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.
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.
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.
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.
Keep in mind that the NRC is charged with doing research for congress; hence, most of what they put out is related to policy issues that were being debated at the time when the study was made. That being said, you can get some insight into how congressmen might be thinking about our nation's policy issues by reading NRC reports.
Palm trees and 8
Err, make that "less broad." I really shouldn't have had that last coffee; it just makes my submit button spontaneously pressable.
Does having a witty signature really indicate normality?
Very often, the books and papers from NAS, NAE, IOM and NRC provide excellent references by the best people in the country and are very good evaluations of current research, and how we got there. In my work in indoor air quality microbiology, I downloaded one of their books (a page at a time), and the references and reviews were exceptionally helpful in my keeping current and interpreting data. Making their work available for downloading in large units is awesome!
Unfortunately, yes:
http://www.bjupress.com/about/electricity-is-a-mystery.php
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 nutters looking to indoctrinate rather than educate.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
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.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
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.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
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 basically The Force, or Magic in any crappy fantasy novel (*good* fantasy novels tend to have a more coherent model for any magic than the one these guys put forward for electricity).
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.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
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.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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 variant of the True Scotsman fallacy going on here. This is literally a Million Dollar archive (assuming new horrid academic prices of some $250 average per book). But 30% of the thread comments are "why is this not a torrent?". And there's the secret. Lots of torrenters don't ever plan to exhaust the materials in their torrent. They just like having it like collecting mushrooms in a video game.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
> Implying congressmen are capable of thinking
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
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.