Why Can’t We Walk Straight?

in Random, Science | November 28th, 2010

When we’re blind­fold­ed, we’re doomed to walk in cir­cles. The same thing hap­pens when we dri­ve and swim with­out the ben­e­fit of sight. Around and around we go. Robert Krul­wich, the cohost of the excel­lent Radi­o­lab show (iTunes — Feed — Site), breaks this all down with some intrigu­ing ani­ma­tion. But let me add this lit­tle spoil­er alert. What makes us spin in cir­cles still defies sci­en­tif­ic expla­na­tion. H/T to Mike in Cam­bridge.

via berto-meis­ter

A Big Bach Download: All of Bach’s Organ Works for Free

in Music | November 24th, 2010

A quick fyi for Bach lovers: You can down­load for free the com­plete organ works of Johann Sebas­t­ian Bach. They were record­ed by Dr. James Kib­bie (Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan) on orig­i­nal baroque organs in Leipzig, Ger­many. Start with a col­lec­tion of Favorite Mas­ter­works, or get the com­plete works that have been divid­ed into 13 groups for easy down­load. Once you down­load these zip files, you will need to unzip them and import them into iTunes or a sim­i­lar appli­ca­tion. Thanks for @Pdarche (Peter Darche) for flag­ging this for us.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How a Bach Canon Works

A Young Glenn Gould Plays Bach

All of Bach Is Putting Videos of 1,080 Bach Per­for­mances Online:

Talking Literature with Great British Novelists

in Books, Literature | November 4th, 2010

Image via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

For decades, the BBC has inter­viewed leg­endary British nov­el­ists, ask­ing them how they cre­ate their mem­o­rable char­ac­ters, paint their evoca­tive set­tings with words, and devel­op plots that keep us turn­ing pages. Now, these audio inter­views appear online in a col­lec­tion called In Their  Own Words. The archive takes you back to 1937, to a con­ver­sa­tion with Vir­ginia Woolf, then moves you for­ward to inter­views with Aldous Hux­ley, JRR Tolkien, Doris Less­ing, Mar­tin Amis, VS Naipaul, and Salman Rushdie, to name just a few. These record­ings sit nice­ly along­side a giant archive of lit­er­ary inter­views recent­ly pub­lished online by The Paris Review. (More on that here.) So, if you want to get into the “how” of lit­er­a­ture, you can now tap instant­ly into the col­lec­tive wis­dom of the lit­er­ary greats.

Fol­low Open Cul­ture on Face­book and Twit­ter and share intel­li­gent media with your friends. Or bet­ter yet, sign up for our dai­ly email and get a dai­ly dose of Open Cul­ture in your inbox. And if you want to make sure that our posts def­i­nite­ly appear in your Face­book news­feed, just fol­low these sim­ple steps.

Stephen Fry Gets Animated about Language

in Literature, Video - Arts & Culture | October 27th, 2010

For a brief time in 2008, Stephen Fry, the pop­u­lar British author, writer and come­di­an, pro­duced a series of pod­casts – called “Pod­grams” – that drew on his writ­ings, speech­es and col­lec­tive thoughts. (Find them on RSS and iTunes here). Dur­ing one par­tic­u­lar episode, Fry med­i­tat­ed on lan­guage (the Eng­lish lan­guage & his own lan­guage) and a lit­tle on Barthes, Chom­sky, Pinker and even Eddie Izzard. Then Matthew Rogers took that med­i­ta­tion and ran with it, pro­duc­ing a “kinet­ic typog­ra­phy ani­ma­tion” that art­ful­ly illus­trates a six minute seg­ment of the longer talk. Watch it above, and if you’re cap­ti­vat­ed by what Fry has to say, don’t miss his pop­u­lar video, What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18.

David Sedaris Reads From New book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk

in Audio Books, Books, Comedy | October 5th, 2010

Squir­rel Seeks Chip­munk: A Mod­est Bes­tiary, the new book by David Sedaris has hit the stands last week. And now thanks to The Guardian we get Sedaris him­self read­ing a story/chapter from the col­lec­tion, “The Mouse and the Snake.” It runs near­ly 10 min­utes. Start play­ing below…

via @brainpicker

Gustavo Dudamel with the Vienna Philharmonic: A Free Live Webcast

in Music | September 13th, 2010

Mark this on your cal­en­dar. This com­ing Sat­ur­day, at 7:30 a.m. Cal­i­for­nia time, Gus­ta­vo Dudamel (soon to open the 2010-11 sea­son of the Los Ange­les Phil­har­mon­ic) will con­duct a con­cert with the Vien­na Phil­har­mon­ic at the Lucerne Fes­ti­val in Switzer­land. As the LA Times reports, the con­cert will be web­cast live for free at www.medici.tv. It will also be avail­able for 90 days on demand. Pieces will include Rossini’s over­ture to “La gaz­za ladra,” Orbón’s “Tres ver­siones sin­fóni­cas,” Bern­stein’s “Diver­ti­men­to for Orches­tra” and Rav­el’s “Pavane pour une infante défunte” and “Boléro.”

via Cul­ture Mon­ster

200 Free Textbooks: A Meta Collection

in | August 13th, 2010

Free text­books (aka open text­books) writ­ten by knowl­edgable schol­ars are a rel­a­tive­ly new phe­nom­e­non. Below, find a meta list of 200 Free Text­books, and check back often for new addi­tions. Also see our online col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Art His­to­ry

• A Text­book of the His­to­ry of Paint­ing by John Charles Van Dyke, Rut­gers

Biol­o­gy

• Anato­my and Phys­i­ol­o­gy — Edit­ed by var­i­ous profs at Open­Stax
• Biol­o­gy — Edit­ed by var­i­ous profs at Open­Stax
• Bio­chem­istry Free For All 1.3 — Kevin, Indi­ra and Tara­lyn
• Bio­chem­istry Free and Easy — Kevin Ahern and Dr. Indi­ra Rajagopal, Ore­gon State
• Botany Online: The Inter­net Hyper­text­book by mul­ti­ple schol­ars.
• Cells: Mol­e­cules and Mech­a­nisms. Pub­lished by the Axolotl Aca­d­e­m­ic Pub­lish­ing Co.
• CK-12 Biol­o­gy I (Grades 9–12) edit­ed by Dou­glas Wilkin, Chair, Dept of Sci­ence, Los Ange­les Uni­fied School Dis­trict
• CK-12 Life Sci­ence (Grades 9–12) edit­ed by Dou­glas Wilkin, Chair, Dept of Sci­ence, Los Ange­les Uni­fied School Dis­trict
• Con­cepts of Biol­o­gy — Edit­ed by var­i­ous profs at Open­Stax
• Fun­da­men­tals of Cell Biol­o­gy — Lau­ren Dal­ton and Robin Young
• Guide to Get­ting into Med School — Kevin Ahern and Dr. Indi­ra Rajagopal, Ore­gon State
• Life on Earth (iBook) — E.O. Wil­son, Har­vard

Busi­ness and Man­age­ment

• Busi­ness Ethics by Jose A. Cruz-Cruz, William Frey, Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico — Mayaguez
• Busi­ness Fun­da­men­tals by the Glob­al Text Project
• Core Con­cepts of Mar­ket­ing by John Bur­nett
• Cor­po­rate Finance by Ivo Welch, UCLA
• CREATE OR PERISH: The Case for Inven­tions and Patents by Robert Rines, MIT
• Elec­tron­ic Com­merce by Mul­ti­ple authors, Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia, Bent­ley Col­lege, and Simon Fras­er Uni­ver­si­ty

• Guide­lines for Improv­ing the Effec­tive­ness of Boards of Direc­tors of Non­prof­it Orga­ni­za­tions by Vic Mur­ray and Yvonne Har­ri­son, SUNY, Albany

Chem­istry

• Chem­istry Vir­tu­al Text­books by Stephen Low­er, Simon Fras­er Uni­ver­si­ty
• CK-12 Chem­istry (Grades 9–12) by mul­ti­ple authors. Cov­ers high school chem­istry cur­ricu­lum in Cal­i­for­nia.
• Con­cept Devel­op­ment Stud­ies in Chem­istry by John S. Hutchin­son, Rice Uni­ver­si­ty
• Con­cepts in Phys­i­cal Chem­istry by Peter Atkins, Oxford
• Organ­ic Chem­istry (with a Bio­log­i­cal Empha­sis) by Tim Soder­berg, Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta, Mor­ris
• Vir­tu­al Text­book of Organ­ic Chem­istry. Pre­sent­ed by Michi­gan State

Clas­sics

• Cicero, On Pompey’s Com­mand (De Impe­rio), 27–49. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocab­u­lary, Com­men­tary, and Trans­la­tion, by Ingo Gilden­hard, Louise Hodg­son, et al, Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty.
• Tac­i­tus, Annals, 15.20­-23, 33­-45. Latin Text, Study Aids with Vocab­u­lary, and Com­men­tary, by Math­ew Owen and Ingo Gilden­hard, Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty
• Vir­gil, Aeneid, 4.1–299. Latin Text, Study Ques­tions, Com­men­tary and Inter­pre­ta­tive Essays by Ingo Gilden­hard, by Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty
• Cicero, Against Ver­res, 2.1.53–86. Latin Text with Intro­duc­tion, Study Ques­tions, Com­men­tary and Eng­lish Trans­la­tion, by Ingo Gilden­hard, Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty

Com­put­er Sci­ence & Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems

• A Byte of Python, by Swa­roop C H
• A First Course in Elec­tri­cal and Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing by Louis Scharf, Col­orado State
• Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence: Foun­da­tions of Com­pu­ta­tion­al Agents by David Poole and Alan Mack­worth, Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia
• Bits, Sig­nals, and Pack­ets: An Intro­duc­tion to Dig­i­tal Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Net­works by Hari Bal­akr­ish­nan, Christo­pher Ter­man, and George Vergh­ese, MIT
• Code Like a Python­ista: Idiomat­ic Python, by David Goodger
• Com­pu­ta­tion­al Geom­e­try by Nicholas M. Patrikalakis, Takashi Maekawa, MIT
• Dive into Python 3, by Mark Pil­grim
• Foun­da­tions of Com­put­er Sci­ence by Al Aho (Colum­bia) and Jeff Ull­man (Stan­ford)
• How to Design Pro­grams: An Intro­duc­tion to Com­put­ing and Pro­gram­ming, Mul­ti­ple Authors
• High Per­for­mance Com­put­ing by Charles Sev­er­ance, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan
• How to Think Like a Com­put­er Sci­en­tist: C ++ ( PDF) by Allen B. Downey, Olin Col­lege
• How to Think Like a Com­put­er Sci­en­tist: Java by Allen B. Downey, Olin Col­lege
• How to Think Like a Com­put­er Sci­en­tist: Python by Allen B. Downey, Olin Col­lege
• How to Think Like a Com­put­er Sci­en­tist: Learn­ing with Python 3 by Peter Went­worth, Jef­frey Elkn­er, Allen B. Downey, and Chris Mey­ers.
• Imple­ment­ing a One Address CPU in Logisim by Charles W. Kann III, Get­tys­burg Col­lege
• Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy and the Net­worked Econ­o­my by Patrick McK­e­own, Uni­ver­si­ty of Geor­gia
• Infor­ma­tion The­o­ry, Infer­ence, and Learn­ing Algo­rithms by David MacK­ay, Cam­bridge
• Intro­duc­tion To MIPS Assem­bly Lan­guage Pro­gram­ming by Charles W. Kann III, Get­tys­burg Col­lege
• Neur­al Net­works and Deep Learn­ing, by Michael Nielsen, Research Fel­low at the Recurse Cen­ter
• Pat­terns for Begin­ning Pro­gram­mers (with Exam­ples in Java), by David Bern­stein, James Madi­son Uni­ver­si­ty
• Phi­los­o­phy of Com­put­er Sci­ence by William J. Rapa­port, Uni­ver­si­ty at Buf­fa­lo, The State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York
• Prin­ci­ples of Com­put­er Sys­tem Design: An Intro­duc­tion (Part 1 and Part II) by Jerome Saltzer and M. Frans Kaashoek.
• Prin­ci­ples of Pro­gram­ming Lan­guages by Grad Stu­dents, Johns Hop­kins
• Pro­gram­ming Lan­guages: Appli­ca­tion and Inter­pre­ta­tion by Dr. Shri­ram Krish­na­murthi, Brown Uni­ver­si­ty.
• Pro­log and Nat­ur­al-Lan­guage Analy­sis by Fer­nan­do C. N. Pereira and Stu­art M. Shieber, U Penn & Har­vard
• Python for Infor­mat­ics: Explor­ing Infor­ma­tion by Charles Sev­er­ance, Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan
• Struc­ture and Inter­pre­ta­tion of Com­put­er Pro­grams by Jer­ry Suss­man & Julie Suss­man
• Teach Your­self Word­Per­fect Mac by John Rethorst
• The Prince­ton Bit­coin Text­book by Arvind Narayanan (Prince­ton) and col­leagues

Earth Sci­ence

• CK-12 Earth Sci­ence for Mid­dle School by mul­ti­ple authors.
• Intro­duc­tion to Phys­i­cal Oceanog­ra­phy by Dr. Robert Stew­art, Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ty

Eco­nom­ics & Finance

• Prin­ci­ples of Macro­eco­nom­ics by Lib­by Rit­ten­berg and Tim­o­thy Tre­garthen, Col­orado Col­lege

Edu­ca­tion

• Edu­ca­tion­al Psy­chol­o­gy by Kevin Seifert and Rose­mary Sut­ton, Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­i­to­ba and Cleve­land State

Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing

• Dig­i­tal Cir­cuit Projects: An Overview of Dig­i­tal Cir­cuits Through Imple­ment­ing Inte­grat­ed Cir­cuits by Charles W. Kann, Get­tys­burg Col­lege
• Elec­tro­mag­net­ics and Appli­ca­tions by David Staelin, MIT
• Electro­mechan­i­cal Dynam­ics by Her­bert H. Wood­son and James R. Melch­er, MIT
• Fun­da­men­tals of Elec­tri­cal Engi­neer­ing I by Don John­son, Rice Uni­ver­si­ty
• Intro­duc­tion to Nano­elec­tron­ics by Marc Bal­do, MIT
• Intro­duc­tion to Phys­i­cal Elec­tron­ics by William Wil­son, Rice Uni­ver­si­ty
• Intro­duc­tion to Sta­t­ics and Dynam­ics by Andy Ruina and Rudra Prat­ap, Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty
• Lessons In Elec­tric Cir­cuits by  Tony R. Kuphaldt, Belling­ham Tech­ni­cal Col­lege
• Oper­a­tional Ampli­fiers: The­o­ry and Prac­tice by James K. Roberge, MIT
• Sig­nals, Sys­tems and Infer­ence by MIT
• Sig­nals and Sys­tems, by Alan Oppen­heim and Alan Will­sky, MIT
• Sys­tem Design for Uncer­tain­ty, by Michael S. Tri­antafyl­lou, MIT
• The Art of Insight in Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing: Mas­ter­ing Com­plex­i­ty, by Prof. San­joy Maha­jan

Engi­neer­ing

• Analy­sis of Struc­tur­al Mem­ber Sys­tems by Jerome Con­nor, MIT
• Engi­neer­ing: An Intro­duc­tion for High School (9–12) by mul­ti­ple authors
• Maneu­ver­ing and Con­trol of Sur­face and Under­wa­ter Vehi­cles, by Michael S. Tri­antafyl­lou, MIT
• Mechan­ics of Mate­ri­als by MIT

His­to­ry

• US His­to­ry Learn­er Eng­lish (ESL) by The Learn­er Eng­lish Series
• U.S. His­to­ry since 1877 by James Ross-Naz­zal, Hous­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege

Lan­guages

• Deutsch im Blick by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas
• Ger­man for Read­ing Knowl­edge by Howard Mar­tin, revised and expand­ed as an open online text­book by Alan Ng, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son
• Hin­di: An Active Intro­duc­tion by DN Shar­ma & James Stone, For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute
• Learn­ing Chi­nese: A Foun­da­tion Course in Man­darin by Julian Wheat­ley, MIT
• My Kore­an 1 and 2 by Young‑A Cho, In-Jung Cho, Monash Uni­ver­si­ty (Aus­tralia)
• Español I (free for iPad) by David Nance, ADE Dis­tance Learn­ing Cen­ter
• French: Famil­iar­iza­tion and Short-Term Train­ing by For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute
• Span­ish: Famil­iar­iza­tion and Short Term Train­ing by For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute

Law

• Open Intel­lec­tu­al Prop­er­ty Case­book by James Boyle and Jen­nifer Jenk­ins, Duke

Lin­guis­tics

• How Lan­guage Works: The Cog­ni­tive Sci­ence of Lin­guis­tics by Mike Gasser, Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty

Math­e­mat­ics

• Abstract Alge­bra: The Basic Grad­u­ate Year by Robert B. Ash, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois
• Abstract Alge­bra: The­o­ry and Appli­ca­tions by Thomas W. Jud­son, Stephen F. Austin State Uni­ver­si­ty
• Advanced Alge­bra II by Ken­ny Felder,  Raleigh Char­ter High School
• Advanced Cal­cu­lus by Stern­berg Shlo­mo and Lynn Loomis, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty
• Alge­bra 1 (Grades 9 & 10) by Andrew and Anne Gloag, High Tech High in San Diego, Cal­i­for­nia
• Alge­bra and Analy­sis for Com­put­er Sci­ence by Jean Gal­li­er, Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia.
• Applied Prob­a­bil­i­ty by Paul Pfeif­fer, Rice Uni­ver­si­ty
• Basic Analy­sis by Jiří Lebl, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Urbana-Cham­paign
• Basic Con­cepts of Math­e­mat­ics by Elias Zakon, The Uni­ver­si­ty of Wind­sor
• Basic Prob­a­bil­i­ty The­o­ry by Robert B. Ash, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois
• Basic Prob­a­bil­i­ty and Sta­tis­tics by Bren­da Meery, high school math­e­mat­ics teacher in Glace Bay, Nova Sco­tia
• Book of Proof by Dr. Richard Ham­mack, Vir­ginia Com­mon­wealth Uni­ver­si­ty
• Cal­cu­lus for Begin­ners and Artists by MIT
• Cal­cu­lus Online Text­book, by Gilbert Strang, MIT
• Cal­cu­lus (PDF) by David Guichard, Whit­man Col­lege.
• Cal­cu­lus (PDF) by Gilbert Strang, MIT
• Cal­cu­lus 1 by Paul Dawkins, Lamar Uni­ver­si­ty
• Cal­cu­lus 2 by Paul Dawkins, Lamar Uni­ver­si­ty
• Cal­cu­lus 3 by Paul Dawkins, Lamar Uni­ver­si­ty
• Cal­cu­lus with Appli­ca­tions, by Daniel Kleit­man, MIT
• CK-12 Geom­e­try (Grades 10–12) by mul­ti­ple authors. Cov­ers Cal­i­for­nia cur­ricu­lum.
• CK-12 Sin­gle Vari­able Cal­cu­lus (Grades 11–12) by Mul­ti­ple authors. Cov­ers Cal­i­for­nia cur­ricu­lum.
• CK-12 Trigonom­e­try — Sec­ond Edi­tion (Grades 10–12) by mul­ti­ple authors. Cov­ers Cal­i­for­nia cur­ricu­lum.
• Col­lab­o­ra­tive Sta­tis­tics by Bar­bara Illowsky, Ph.D and Susan Dean, De Anza Col­lege
• Col­lege Alge­bra by Paul Dawkins, Lamar Uni­ver­si­ty
• Com­plex Analy­sis by George Cain, Geor­gia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy
• Com­plex Vari­ables by Robert B. Ash, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois
• Com­pu­ta­tion­al Geom­e­try by Nicholas M. Patrikalakis, Takashi Maekawa, MIT
• A Com­pu­ta­tion­al Intro­duc­tion to Num­ber The­o­ry and Alge­bra by Vic­tor Shoup, NYU
• A Course In Alge­bra­ic Num­ber The­o­ry by Robert B. Ash, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois
• A Course In Com­mu­ta­tive Alge­bra by Robert B. Ash, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois
• Design of Com­par­a­tive Exper­i­ments by R. A. Bai­ley, Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don
• Dif­fer­ence Equa­tions to Dif­fer­en­tial Equa­tions: An Intro­duc­tion to Cal­cu­lus by Dan Sloughter, Fur­man Uni­ver­si­ty
• Dif­fer­en­tial Equa­tions by Paul Dawkins, Lamar Uni­ver­si­ty
• Dis­crete Math­e­mat­ics: An Open Intro­duc­tion by Oscar Levin, Uni­ver­si­ty of North­ern Col­orado
• Dynam­i­cal Sys­tems by S. Stern­berg, Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty
• Elec­tron­ic Sta­tis­tics Text­book by T. Hill & P. Lewic­ki.
• Ele­men­tary Abstract Alge­bra by W. Edwin Clark, Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Flori­da
• Ele­men­tary Cal­cu­lus: An Infin­i­tes­i­mal Approach by H. Jerome Keisler, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son
• Ele­men­tary Dif­fer­en­tial Equa­tions (PDF) by William F. Trench, Trin­i­ty Uni­ver­si­ty
• Ele­men­tary Dif­fer­en­tial Equa­tions with Bound­ary Val­ue Prob­lems (PDF) by William F. Trench, Trin­i­ty Uni­ver­si­ty
• Stu­dent Solu­tions Man­u­al for Ele­men­tary Dif­fer­en­tial Equa­tions and Ele­men­tary Dif­fer­en­tial Equa­tions with Bound­ary Val­ue Prob­lems (PDF) by William F. Trench, Trin­i­ty Uni­ver­si­ty
• Ele­men­tary Lin­ear Alge­bra by Kei­th Matthews, Uni­ver­si­ty of Queens­land
• Ele­men­tary Num­ber The­o­ry by W. Edwin Clark, Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Flori­da
• Ele­ments of Abstract and Lin­ear Alge­bra by Edwin H. Con­nell, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mia­mi
• First Course in Com­plex Analy­sis by Matthias Beck, Ger­ald March­esi, and Den­nis Pix­ton, SUNY — Bing­ham­ton
• First Course in Lin­ear Alge­bra by Dr. Robert Beez­er, Uni­ver­si­ty of Puget Sound
• Func­tions Defined by Improp­er Inte­grals (PDF) by William F. Trench, Trin­i­ty Uni­ver­si­ty
• Gen­er­at­ing­Func­tionol­o­gy by Her­bert Wilf, Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia
• Intro­duc­tion to Matrix Alge­bra by Autar K Kaw, Uni­ver­si­ty of South Flori­da
• Intro­duc­tion to Prob­a­bil­i­ty (PDF) by Charles Grin­stead & J. Lau­rie Snell, Swarth­more & Dart­mouth Col­leges
• Intro­duc­tion to Prob­a­bil­i­ty, Sta­tis­tics, and Ran­dom Process­es by Hos­sein Pishro-Nik, UMass Amherst
• Intro­duc­tion to Real Analy­sis (PDF) by William F. Trench, Trin­i­ty Uni­ver­si­ty
• Intro­duc­tion to Social Net­work Meth­ods by Robert A. Han­ne­man and Mark Rid­dle, UC River­side
• Intro­duc­tion to Sta­tis­ti­cal Thought by Michael Lavine, UMASS
• Intro­duc­to­ry Sta­tis­tics: Con­cepts, Mod­els, and Appli­ca­tions by David W. Stock­burg­er, Mis­souri State
• Intro­duc­tion to the The­o­ry of Num­bers by Leo Moser, McGill
• Lec­tures on Prob­a­bil­i­ty, Sta­tis­tics and Econo­met­rics by Mar­co Tabo­ga, Econ­o­mist, Bank of Italy
• Lec­tures on Sta­tis­tics by Robert B. Ash, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois
• Lin­ear Alge­bra (PDF) by Jim Hef­fer­on, Saint Michael’s Col­lege
• Lin­ear Alge­bra by Paul Dawkins, Lamar Uni­ver­si­ty
• Math Alive by Ingrid Daubechies, Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty
• Math in Soci­ety by David Lip­mann, Pierce Col­lege
• Math, Numer­ics, and Pro­gram­ming (for Mechan­i­cal Engi­neers) by Masayu­ki Yano, MIT
• Math­e­mat­i­cal Meth­ods of Engi­neer­ing Analy­sis (PDF) by Erhan Çin­lar and Robert J. Van­der­bei, Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty
• Mul­ti­vari­able Cal­cu­lus by George Cain & James Herod, Geor­gia Tech
• Proofs and Con­cepts: The Fun­da­men­tals of Abstract Math­e­mat­ics by Dave Witte Mor­ris and Joy Mor­ris, Uni­ver­si­ty of Leth­bridge
• Real Vari­ables with Basic Met­ric Space Topol­o­gy by Robert B. Ash, Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois
• Sta­tis­tics by Philip B. Stark, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia — UC Berke­ley
• A Sum­ma­ry of Cal­cu­lus by Karl Heinz Dover­mann, Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaii
• The Book “A=B” by Marko Petkovsek, Her­bert Wilf and Doron Zeil­berg­er, Univ. of Penn­syl­va­nia and Rut­gers
• The Method of Lagrange Mul­ti­pli­ers (PDF) by William Trench, Trin­i­ty Uni­ver­si­ty
• The Cal­cu­lus of Func­tions of Sev­er­al Vari­ables by Dan Sloughter, Fur­man Uni­ver­si­ty
• Yet Anoth­er Cal­cu­lus Text by Dan Sloughter, Fur­man Uni­ver­si­ty

Music

• Beyond Slonim­sky: Melod­ic Pat­terns for Gui­tar — by Rich Cochrane (Find alter­nate ver­sion here)
• Music Fun­da­men­tals 1: Pitch and Major Scales and Keys — by Ter­ry B. Ewell, Tow­son Uni­ver­si­ty
• Music Fun­da­men­tals 3: Minor Scales and Keys — by Ter­ry B. Ewell, Tow­son Uni­ver­si­ty
• Music Fun­da­men­tals 5: Tri­ads, Chords, Intro­duc­tion to Roman Numer­als by Ter­ry B. Ewell, Tow­son Uni­ver­si­ty
• Scale and Arpeg­gio Resources: A Gui­tar Ency­clo­pe­dia by Rich Cochrane (Find alter­nate ver­sion here)
• Sound Rea­son­ing (Intro­duc­to­ry Music course) by Antho­ny Brandt, Rice Uni­ver­si­ty
• Under­stand­ing Basic Music The­o­ry, Edit­ed by Cather­ine Schmidt-Jones

Phi­los­o­phy

• Ani­mals and Ethics 101: Think­ing Crit­i­cal­ly About Ani­mal Rights by Nathan Nobis, More­house Col­lege
• A Mod­ern For­mal Log­ic Primer by Paul Teller, UC Davis
• Argu­ments: Deduc­tive Log­ic Exer­cis­es, by H. Pospe­sel and D. Marans, UC Davis
• forall x: An Intro­duc­tion to For­mal Log­ic by PD Mag­nus, Uni­ver­si­ty at Albany, State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York
• foral­lx: Cam­bridge by P.D. Mag­nus; mod­i­fied for Cam­bridge by Tim But­ton
• Metathe­o­ry for truth-func­tion­al log­ic by Tim But­ton, Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty

Physics

• Age of Ein­stein, by Frank W. K. Firk, Yale Uni­ver­si­ty.
• Cal­cu­lus-Based Physics by Jef­frey W. Schnick, Saint Anselm Col­lege
• Col­lege Physics (intro­duc­to­ry, alge­bra-based, two-semes­ter col­lege physics book) by Open­Stax
• Con­cep­tu­al Physics by Ben­jamin Crow­ell, Fuller­ton Col­lege
• Con­ser­va­tion Laws by Ben­jamin Crow­ell, Fuller­ton Col­lege
• Essen­tial Physics 1, Frank W.K. Firk, Yale Uni­ver­si­ty
• Fields by War­ren Siegel, SUNY
• Gen­er­al Rel­a­tiv­i­ty by Ben­jamin Crow­ell, Fuller­ton Col­lege
• Intro­duc­tion to Groups, Invari­ants & Par­ti­cles, by Frank W. K. Firk, Yale Uni­ver­si­ty
• Intro­duc­tion to Sta­t­ics and Dynam­ics by Andy Ruina and Rudra Prat­ap, Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty
• Intro­duc­tion to String Field The­o­ry by War­ren Siegel, SUNY
• Moun­tain Motion by Dr. Christoph Schiller PhD, trained at Uni­ver­sité Libre de Brux­elles
• Optics by Ben­jamin Crow­ell, Fuller­ton Col­lege
• Pro­gram­ming Lan­guages: Appli­ca­tion and Inter­pre­ta­tion by Dr. Shri­ram Krish­na­murthi, Brown Uni­ver­si­ty
• Sim­ple Nature: An Intro­duc­tion to Physics for Engi­neer­ing and Phys­i­cal Sci­ence Stu­dents by Ben Crow­ell, Fuller­ton Col­lege
• Super­space: One Thou­sand and One Lessons in Super­sym­me­try by War­ren Siegel. Jim Gates, Marc Gris­aru, and Mar­tin Rocek, SUNY, McGill, Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land
• The Feyn­man Lec­tures on Physics by Richard Feyn­man, Robert B. Leighton and Matthew Sands
• The Light and Mat­ter Series (Six texts) by Ben­jamin Crow­ell, Fuller­ton Col­lege
• Vibra­tions and Waves by Ben­jamin Crow­ell, Fuller­ton Col­lege
• The Mod­ern Rev­o­lu­tion in Physics by Ben­jamin Crow­ell, Fuller­ton Col­lege
• The Peo­ple’s Physics Book by James H. Dann, UC San­ta Cruz
• 21st Cen­tu­ry Physics Flex­book: A Com­pi­la­tion of Con­tem­po­rary and Emerg­ing Tech­nolo­gies, by the Sec­re­taries of Edu­ca­tion and Tech­nol­o­gy and the Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion in the state of Vir­ginia

Psy­chol­o­gy

• Edu­ca­tion­al Psy­chol­o­gy by Kevin Seifert and Rose­mary Sut­ton, Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­i­to­ba and Cleve­land State

Soci­ol­o­gy 

• Amer­i­can Soci­ety: How It Actu­al­ly Works by By Erik Olin Wright & Joel Rogers, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin
• Intro­duc­tion to Soci­ol­o­gy by mul­ti­ple pro­fes­sors

Sys­tem The­o­ry 

• Intro­duc­tion to the Mod­el­ing and Analy­sis of Com­plex Sys­tems by Hiro­ki Saya­ma, Bing­ham­ton Uni­ver­si­ty, State Uni­ver­si­ty of New York.

Find more texts in our Free eBooks and Free Audio Books col­lec­tions

Christopher Hitchens on Cancer, Life and Religion

in Life, Religion | August 9th, 2010

Christo­pher Hitchens has­n’t turned inward since his can­cer diag­no­sis in June. Nor, as some might have antic­i­pat­ed, has he budged from his athe­ist views out­lined in his 2007 best­seller God Is Not Great. And if you hear rumors of an even­tu­al deathbed con­ver­sion, don’t believe them. That’s the mes­sage he pass­es along to Ander­son Coop­er in a new CNN inter­view (above). Also, Hitchens has just pub­lished a new piece in Van­i­ty Fair where he talks about his intro­duc­tion to (esoph­a­gus) can­cer in a way that only Hitchens can. Regard­less of what you think about Hitchens, it’s def­i­nite­ly worth a read…

via Dai­ly Hitchens

Crime and Punishment: Free AudioBook and eBook

in Audio Books, Literature | June 17th, 2010

In 1865, Fyo­dor Dos­to­evsky found him­self in a deep hole. He had gam­bled away his last sav­ings and wracked up big debts. He also had to sup­port the fam­i­ly of his recent­ly deceased broth­er. Look­ing to make some quick mon­ey, Dos­to­evsky asked Mikhail Katkov, pub­lish­er of The Russ­ian Mes­sen­ger, for an advance. Then he began writ­ing in earnest a novel­la that soon sprawled into a grand nov­el. The first part of Crime and Pun­ish­ment would appear in The Russ­ian Mes­sen­ger in Jan­u­ary 1866; the sec­ond part in Decem­ber of that same year. Like The Broth­ers Kara­ma­zov (Dos­to­evsky’s oth­er major work), Crime and Pun­ish­ment probes the dark side of human psy­chol­o­gy and asks some hard exis­ten­tial ques­tions. Niet­zsche would lat­er call Dos­to­evsky “the only psy­chol­o­gist from whom I have some­thing to learn: he belongs to the hap­pi­est wind­falls of my life, hap­pi­er even than the dis­cov­ery of Stend­hal.” One of the mas­ter­pieces of the Russ­ian lit­er­ary tra­di­tion, Crime and Pun­ish­ment is now avail­able as a free audio book thanks to Lit2Go. You can down­load the nov­el in full via iTunes, or as mp3s via the Lit2Go web site. Mean­while, if you’re look­ing for a free etext ver­sion of the nov­el, you can find it in the fol­low­ing for­mats: Google Mobile – Kin­dle – Feed­books — ePub.

Note: Crime and Pun­ish­ment appears in our Free Audio Books and Free eBooks col­lec­tions.

Learn how you can get a Free Audio Book (no strings attached) from Audible.com here.

Follow us on Twitter & Facebook

in Twitter | June 13th, 2010

A quick reminder: we’re always adding more good cul­tur­al con­tent to our Twit­ter stream. Give us a fol­low at @openculture, and we’ll keep send­ing curat­ed cul­ture (in the form of tweets and retweets) your way. So far 6,200+ read­ers have joined us there. If you appre­ci­ate what Open Cul­ture is all about, it’s a must.

You can also access Open Cul­ture on Face­book. Become a Fan (or give us a Like — what­ev­er the lat­est lin­go may be), and we’ll drop our dai­ly con­tent into your Face­book News Feed. This will give you an easy way to keep tabs on us and share the knowl­edge with your friends. Thanks for join­ing us, and spread­ing the word. Enjoy the rest of the week­end.