Friday, September 24, 2010

I Love The Internet!

The internet has its nutty side, and a sleazy underbelly, and it's a famous time waster.  But the internet also has a noble side. 

It always delights me to stumble upon a hidden treasure, or better yet, a polite person willing to help others.

Awhile back I picked up Morris Kline's "Calculus, an Intuitive and Physical Approach."  The late professor was an amazing teacher.  He eschews the rigorous method so adored by math purists, and instead explains the calculus using examples from the physical sciences.  It's a wonderful reference, and he wrote it back in the academically stodgy 60's!  I highly recommend it for anyone needing a brush up or as a tool to help a student.

Anyway, the book has exercises at the end of each chapter, but no solutions!  The foreword hints at an answers edition for teachers, but my search for it was in vain, until one day I googled it and found the answer to my prayers in the Review section of Amazon.com.


Thank You Pheriwinkle!
Pheriwinkle from San Francisco explained in the Amazon Review section for the book how he had written to the publisher requesting the solutions manual and they e-mailed him a free pdf copy.  They told him he could distribute it freely, and he did.  He posted it on his website.  If you too have been looking for this manual, you can find it here.

Pheriwinkle's real name is Kevin Wong, and he has a cool web site that explains how to use your computer keyboard to type out ancient languages.  You can check it out here.

Other Fine Stuff on the Innerwebz
Did you know you can take college courses for free from such world famous universities as MIT, Tufts, and Stanford?  No credit is given, but knowledge is priceless...  Education Portal.com

I am also a big fan of Google Books.  They don't have everything, but you can find many old classics there, and the value of an electronic copy is you can scan for words and phrases.  For those of you with an Austrian School bent, The Ludwig Von Mises Institute has an abundant offering of free on-line libertarian literature.


Pay it Forward
I was so pleasantly surprised that Mr. Wong went out of his way to share a treasure he had found when most people (including me) would have greedily hoarded it to ourselves.  Thus inspired, I decided to pay it forward.

Have a happy weekend!

3 comments:

Christopher - Conservative Perspective said...

Thanks Silver,

The internet can be an excellent resource if one takes the time to research it.

Lisa said...

wow I must say you sure do your research. Thanks for those links.

Joe said...

As you say, the Internet can be a mixed bag, but I love it for the wealth of information it provides.

One has to be aware, patient and smart about its use, but used wisely it is priceless.

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