> Have you read Richard Feynman's experiences serving on the California
> textbook committee? It's in "Surely You're Joking, Dr. Feynman" but
> also online here:
>
> http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
Fabulous!
Ciao,
Peter K.
Reply by Jerry Avins●April 29, 20052005-04-29
Charles Krug wrote:
...
> Have you read Richard Feynman's experiences serving on the California
> textbook committee? It's in "Surely You're Joking, Dr. Feynman" but
> also online here:
>
> http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
I did, long ago. I remember the drift (which I know from other sources;
it hasn't changed much except in biology, where it's gotten worse). The
only part of the details I remember is that it concerned K...12.
Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by Charles Krug●April 29, 20052005-04-29
On 28 Apr 2005 22:51:36 -0700, Rune Allnor <allnor@tele.ntnu.no> wrote:
>
> James Van Buskirk wrote:
>> "Charles Krug" <cdkrug@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
>> news:ig6be.643620$w62.333967@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>>
>> > I'm borrowing Matlab's term in this case.
>>
>> > I'll have to think about James' "countably long" case. You can't
>> > easily convolve ( . . ., 0, 1, 0, . . , ) given finite memory,
> which I
>> > suppose points out the difference between math and implementation.
>>
>> Permit me to point out that in your first post to this thread,
>> you said:
>>
>> > Mathworld is helpful in showing that it's commutative, associative,
> and
>> > distributive, so if it's a group, it's also abelian and a field
> with
>> > addition.
>>
>> The closure under addition is inconsistent with the properties
>> of Matlab vectors: try adding [1 0] to [1 0 0]. That is one
>> reason that I viewed the elements of the vector space in question
>> as I did.
>
> That's because the vectors belong in two different vector spaces.
> A vector space is defined by its "underlying field", i.e. whether
> the coefficients are real or complex numbers, and the dimension.
> Continuous vector spaces are of infinite dimension, but in these
> cases the range [a,b] must be specified,
>
> f(x), a <= x <= b
>
> Rune
My fault as the OP for being imprecise with my use of "vector," I'm
afraid. I Should have reserved it to mean "ordered n-tuple of numbers"
rather than munging it up with the programming definition.
Reply by Charles Krug●April 29, 20052005-04-29
On Thu, 28 Apr 2005 17:03:31 -0700, Jon Harris
<jon_harrisTIGER@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Jerry Avins" <jya@ieee.org> wrote in message
> news:c-udnb5AJYDC9uzfRVn-ow@rcn.net...
>> Jon Harris wrote:
>>
>> ...
>>
>> > My assumption was that for many text books, the class-assigned
>> > market is the vast majority of sales (though I'm sure there are
>> > exceptions).
>>
>> There doesn't seem to be much price competition for that market. Do you
>> suppose that kickbacks are somehow involved?
>
> I really don't know anything about the textbook racket, but I would
> guess it's an issue of spending someone else's money. I've heard that
> it is very common that, when specifying something that you don't have
> to spend your _own_ money on, there is much less incentive to save
> money. The profs don't really care how much the students have to
> spend (within a fairly wide window of "reasonable"), so there isn't
> much incentive to specifying cheaper books. Besides, for most US
> colleges, the books are a small expense compared with tuition,
> room/board, etc..
>
Have you read Richard Feynman's experiences serving on the California
textbook committee? It's in "Surely You're Joking, Dr. Feynman" but
also online here:
http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
Reply by Rune Allnor●April 29, 20052005-04-29
James Van Buskirk wrote:
> "Charles Krug" <cdkrug@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:ig6be.643620$w62.333967@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
> > I'm borrowing Matlab's term in this case.
>
> > I'll have to think about James' "countably long" case. You can't
> > easily convolve ( . . ., 0, 1, 0, . . , ) given finite memory,
which I
> > suppose points out the difference between math and implementation.
>
> Permit me to point out that in your first post to this thread,
> you said:
>
> > Mathworld is helpful in showing that it's commutative, associative,
and
> > distributive, so if it's a group, it's also abelian and a field
with
> > addition.
>
> The closure under addition is inconsistent with the properties
> of Matlab vectors: try adding [1 0] to [1 0 0]. That is one
> reason that I viewed the elements of the vector space in question
> as I did.
That's because the vectors belong in two different vector spaces.
A vector space is defined by its "underlying field", i.e. whether
the coefficients are real or complex numbers, and the dimension.
Continuous vector spaces are of infinite dimension, but in these
cases the range [a,b] must be specified,
f(x), a <= x <= b
Rune
Reply by Peter K.●April 28, 20052005-04-28
Jon Harris wrote:
> The profs don't really care how much the students
> have to spend (within a fairly wide window of "reasonable"),
> so there isn't much incentive to specifying cheaper books.
And the profs get the textbooks for free from the publishers, anyhow.
:-)
Ciao,
Peter K.
Reply by Jon Harris●April 28, 20052005-04-28
"Jerry Avins" <jya@ieee.org> wrote in message
news:c-udnb5AJYDC9uzfRVn-ow@rcn.net...
> Jon Harris wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > My assumption was that for many text books, the class-assigned market is the
> > vast majority of sales (though I'm sure there are exceptions).
>
> There doesn't seem to be much price competition for that market. Do you
> suppose that kickbacks are somehow involved?
I really don't know anything about the textbook racket, but I would guess it's
an issue of spending someone else's money. I've heard that it is very common
that, when specifying something that you don't have to spend your _own_ money
on, there is much less incentive to save money. The profs don't really care how
much the students have to spend (within a fairly wide window of "reasonable"),
so there isn't much incentive to specifying cheaper books. Besides, for most US
colleges, the books are a small expense compared with tuition, room/board, etc..
Reply by Jerry Avins●April 28, 20052005-04-28
Jon Harris wrote:
...
> My assumption was that for many text books, the class-assigned market is the
> vast majority of sales (though I'm sure there are exceptions).
There doesn't seem to be much price competition for that market. Do you
suppose that kickbacks are somehow involved?
Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������
Reply by Jon Harris●April 28, 20052005-04-28
"Jerry Avins" <jya@ieee.org> wrote in message
news:g9CdnR-fd_cnd_LfRVn-qQ@rcn.net...
> Jon Harris wrote:
> > "Randy Yates" <randy.yates@sonyericsson.com> wrote in message
> > news:xxpoec175s1.fsf@usrts005.corpusers.net...
> >
> >>"James Van Buskirk" <not_valid@comcast.net> writes:
> >>
> >>>[...]
> >>
> >>James et al., if you're interested in this subject, I
> >>was going to suggest a great introductory book "Modern
> >>Algebra: An Introduction" by John Durbin but the freaking
> >>thing is $105 on Amazon. Sheesh, where do they come off
> >>asking this much money for a book!?!?!
> >
> >
> > Rick Lyons may have some opinions on that, but given the economics of the
> > situation, I don't begrudge them all that much. Consider that it is much
more
> > difficult and time consuming to write a high-quality highly-specialized
> > technical text book than, say, a trashy novel. Also consider that the
potential
> > audience for such a text is very small compared to the novel. If the author
(or
> > authors) are going to make a reasonable return on their investment, the
price
> > needs to be pretty high.
> >
> > On the flip side, you have a situation where students are _forced_ to buy a
> > particular text for a course, so that serves to eliminate competition, and
kind
> > of screws up the supply-demand model. And it may be that the publishers
take a
> > sizable chunk as well, though again the editing requirements for a technical
> > book must be more expensive than the novel, and they aren't going to see
much
> > volume.
>
> One solution is deep discounts for class-assigned tests. There has to be
> more profit in selling 20 books at 70% off than in selling none at all
> to a particular class. When I graduated, job offers for BEEs were in the
> 5- to $8,000 range and most texts cost about $10. (My copy of Misha
> Schwartz' Information Transmission, Modulation, and Noise was $10.35 at
> the college bookstore.) The ratio hasn't changed much.
My assumption was that for many text books, the class-assigned market is the
vast majority of sales (though I'm sure there are exceptions).
Reply by Jerry Avins●April 27, 20052005-04-27
Jon Harris wrote:
> "Randy Yates" <randy.yates@sonyericsson.com> wrote in message
> news:xxpoec175s1.fsf@usrts005.corpusers.net...
>
>>"James Van Buskirk" <not_valid@comcast.net> writes:
>>
>>>[...]
>>
>>James et al., if you're interested in this subject, I
>>was going to suggest a great introductory book "Modern
>>Algebra: An Introduction" by John Durbin but the freaking
>>thing is $105 on Amazon. Sheesh, where do they come off
>>asking this much money for a book!?!?!
>
>
> Rick Lyons may have some opinions on that, but given the economics of the
> situation, I don't begrudge them all that much. Consider that it is much more
> difficult and time consuming to write a high-quality highly-specialized
> technical text book than, say, a trashy novel. Also consider that the potential
> audience for such a text is very small compared to the novel. If the author (or
> authors) are going to make a reasonable return on their investment, the price
> needs to be pretty high.
>
> On the flip side, you have a situation where students are _forced_ to buy a
> particular text for a course, so that serves to eliminate competition, and kind
> of screws up the supply-demand model. And it may be that the publishers take a
> sizable chunk as well, though again the editing requirements for a technical
> book must be more expensive than the novel, and they aren't going to see much
> volume.
One solution is deep discounts for class-assigned tests. There has to be
more profit in selling 20 books at 70% off than in selling none at all
to a particular class. When I graduated, job offers for BEEs were in the
5- to $8,000 range and most texts cost about $10. (My copy of Misha
Schwartz' Information Transmission, Modulation, and Noise was $10.35 at
the college bookstore.) The ratio hasn't changed much.
Jerry
--
Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get.
�����������������������������������������������������������������������