| > but the presentation is not You are very wrong here. It is the very presentation in those books viz; succinct and concise, no frills approach, high information density and with an eye to applications which makes them so valuable today. It is the best way of Science teaching distilled from the brains of a whole lot of smart people. I am not sure why you are fixated on one book of tables. It is irrelevant in the broader scheme of things. For example none of the Mir books that i have, have anything to do with pre-calculated tables other than a few appendices. There are a huge swath of students across the world who do not have the same access to technology as we do. Printed books are still the norm amongst the majority of students in the world. Printed books will also outlast any Digital media presentation of books due to its simplicity and robustness i.e no problems like DRM, unreadable extinct formats, availability of good ereaders, health aspects, etc (there is a whole lot more i can elaborate here). Finally, and most important, research is beginning to show that we retain/understand less when using ebooks/ereaders than when we read a printed book. This is very much true of technical books (borne out by my own experience) where you need concentrated attention with body and mind. For example, we intuitively jump back and forth across pages, use our fingers as book marks, subconsciously create spatial maps of what we are reading etc. all of which have no analogues with current day ereaders. Cognitive Science is still trying to figure out how best to use modern technology. So don't throw away your old Maths books just yet :-) |