Leon Trotsky: Love, Death and Exile in Mexico

in History | August 20th, 2010

Leon Trot­sky, one of the fathers of the Russ­ian Rev­o­lu­tion, sec­ond only to to Lenin, was assas­si­nat­ed in Mex­i­co 70 years ago today (August 21, 1940). Dur­ing the ear­ly years of the Rev­o­lu­tion, Trot­sky head­ed up for­eign affairs for Rus­sia and found­ed the Red Army. Fol­low­ing Lenin’s death (1924), he looked primed to take con­trol of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary state. But Stal­in had oth­er thoughts about the mat­ter, and, before too long, Trot­sky found him­self in exile again. Pre­vi­ous exiles took him to Siberia, Kaza­khstan, Aus­tria, Switzer­land, Spain and the Unit­ed States. This time, he went to France, Nor­way, Turkey (see the film Vanes­sa Red­grave nar­rates on his stint in Istan­bul) and lat­er Mex­i­co (1936), where he lived with painter Diego Rivera and his wife/fellow painter, Fri­da Kahlo. Even­tu­al­ly, Kahlo and Trot­sky would have a famous affair.

Above, we have some grainy footage of Trot­sky from his Mex­i­co years. The footage dates back to 1937, and it shows Trot­sky, speak­ing in bro­ken Eng­lish, giv­ing thanks to Mex­i­co for pro­vid­ing sanc­tu­ary and defend­ing him­self against the show tri­als that Stal­in orches­trat­ed back in Rus­sia. Trot­sky was sen­tenced to death in absen­tia. Three years lat­er, he would be assas­si­nat­ed by an under­cov­er agent while still liv­ing in Mex­i­co. YouTube has more on the assas­si­na­tion here. A big thanks goes to Mike S. for unearthing this great lit­tle clus­ter of videos.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Good Capitalist Karma: Zizek Animated

in Current Affairs, Economics, Philosophy | August 18th, 2010

Slavoj Zizek, one of today’s most influ­en­tial philosophers/theorists, spoke ear­li­er this year at the Roy­al Soci­ety of the Arts (RSA). And now RSA has post­ed the video online with their patent­ed ani­mat­ed treat­ment. Like oth­er recent RSA speak­ers, Zizek makes mod­ern cap­i­tal­ism his focus. This time, we see how con­tem­po­rary cap­i­tal­ism has essen­tial­ly reworked Max Weber’s Protes­tant Eth­ic, or that strange rela­tion­ship between mon­ey mak­ing and per­son­al redemp­tion. Zizek’s cri­tique isn’t utter­ly damn­ing. (No one will run to the bar­ri­cades.) Nor do I think he intends it to be. But the obser­va­tions hold a cer­tain amount of inter­est, espe­cial­ly when placed along­side Bar­bara Ehren­re­ich and David Har­vey’s relat­ed RSA talks.

You can find the full 30 minute lec­ture (sans car­toons) here, or down­load the video as an mp4 here.

Christopher Walken: Radio Host for a Day

in Film, Media, Radio, Random | August 17th, 2010

The Leonard Lopate Show hits the air­waves every week­day in New York City, typ­i­cal­ly pre­sent­ing four inter­views with cul­tur­al fig­ures. If you tuned in this Mon­day, you found Leonard on vaca­tion and actor Christo­pher Walken fill­ing in. We know Walken can act. But can he car­ry a radio show? Lis­ten in on the web, iTunes, or stream below…

via @slate

Is TED the New Harvard?

in Education, Harvard, TED Talks | August 16th, 2010

Next mon­th’s edi­tion of Fast Com­pa­ny (avail­able online now) brings you a big, glow­ing trib­ute to TED and its TED Talks. It’s a love­fest in print, the kind that sells mag­a­zines. And, along the way, Anya Kamenetz (author of DIY U) makes some big claims for TED. Let me start with this one:

I would go so far as to argue that [TED’s] cre­at­ing a new Har­vard — the first new top-pres­tige edu­ca­tion brand in more than 100 years.

Of course TED does­n’t look like a reg­u­lar Ivy League col­lege. It does­n’t have any build­ings; it does­n’t grant degrees. It does­n’t have singing groups or secret soci­eties, and as far as I know it has­n’t inspired any strange drink­ing games.

Still, if you were start­ing a top uni­ver­si­ty today, what would it look like? You would start by gath­er­ing the very best minds from around the world, from every dis­ci­pline. Since we’re liv­ing in an age of abun­dant, not scarce, infor­ma­tion, you’d curate the lec­tures care­ful­ly, with a focus on the new and orig­i­nal, rather than offer a course on every pos­si­ble top­ic. You’d cre­ate a sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic mod­el by focus­ing on tech­no­log­i­cal rather than phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture, and by get­ting peo­ple of means to pay for a spe­cial­ized expe­ri­ence. You’d also con­struct a robust net­work so peo­ple could access resources when­ev­er and from wher­ev­er they like, and you’d give them the tools to col­lab­o­rate beyond the lec­ture hall. Why not ful­fill the uni­ver­si­ty’s mil­len­ni­um-old mis­sion by shar­ing ideas as freely and as wide­ly as pos­si­ble?

TED, the new Har­vard. The new uni­ver­si­ty. It’s a nice idea … until you think about it for a few moments. Will watch­ing 18 minute lec­tures – ones that bare­ly scratch the sur­face of an expert’s knowl­edge – real­ly teach you much? And when the 18 min­utes are over, will the experts stick around and help you become a crit­i­cal thinker, which is the main under­tak­ing of the mod­ern uni­ver­si­ty after all? (Will they assign the papers where you grap­ple with the dif­fi­cult ideas? Will they make sure your argu­ments are sound? That your writ­ing is lucid? Or will they even expand on their brief lec­tures and teach you some­thing in-depth?) Nope, you’ll get none of that. The experts will give their 18 minute talks, and then they’re gone. Ulti­mate­ly, Kamenetz seems to know she’s over­reach­ing. She even­tu­al­ly cir­cles around to say, “Sure, these talks have their lim­its as an edu­ca­tion­al medi­um. An 18-minute pre­sen­ta­tion, no mat­ter how expert, can’t accom­mo­date any­thing over­ly the­o­ret­i­cal or tech­ni­cal — the for­mat is more con­ge­nial to Freako­nom­ics than eco­nom­ics.” And so the whole ini­tial, catchy premise falls apart. (Mau­ra John­ston right­ly makes this point too, among oth­er good ones, in her must-read reac­tion to the “breath­less” Fast Com­pa­ny arti­cle.)

I have no beef with TED. Quite the con­trary, I’m a big fan of their open lec­tures. (Get the full list here.) And you can’t blame TED when oth­ers read too much into what they do. But, echo­ing points made last week, I do have an issue with com­men­ta­tors reduc­ing edu­ca­tion to watch­ing TV. So a quick request to the “edupunks” and “edupre­neurs” out there. As you’re democ­ra­tiz­ing edu­ca­tion and low­er­ing tuition through tech­nol­o­gy, could you make sure that what­ev­er you’re final­ly offer­ing is an edu­ca­tion in more than mere name? You feel me?

NOTE: Anya Kamenetz, the author of the Fast Com­pa­ny arti­cle, offers a response in the com­ments below. In fair­ness to her, please give them a read. We also have a lit­tle fol­low up.

Reporting the Good News

in Media | August 15th, 2010

You’ve heard the com­plaint before. Why do papers only report the bad news? And why does the good news go unno­ticed? If you’ve ever had this thought, then today is (kind of) your lucky day. Here’s what hap­pens when the New York Times goes hap­py . Watch the video above, and vis­it the paper online…

And, of course, if you want some true sources of good news, you can vis­it the fol­low­ing sites rec­om­mend­ed by one of our read­ers: Good News Net­work and Good News Dai­ly.

200 Free Textbooks: A Meta Collection

in | August 13th, 2010

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

How to Find Cheaper College Textbooks

in Books, e-books | August 12th, 2010

A quick fyi for any col­lege stu­dent look­ing to save some mon­ey on text­books this year. Last week, The New York Times pub­lished a help­ful guide to low­er­ing text­book costs. The com­pre­hen­sive list tells you where you can find free ebooks and cheap elec­tron­ic text­books online, while high­light­ing e‑commerce ven­dors that rent tra­di­tion­al text­books at a reduced cost. (Take Chegg for exam­ple.) In total, the guide lists 20 dif­fer­ent resources. If you’re head­ing to col­lege soon, it’s well worth a look.

Don’t miss Open Cul­ture on Twit­ter and Face­book!

Words

in Video - Arts & Culture | August 12th, 2010

This con­cep­tu­al lit­tle video keeps you think­ing about words and their uses. Will Hoff­man and Daniel Mer­cadante pro­duced it to accom­pa­ny a new Radi­o­lab episode called quite sim­ply “Words.” (Lis­ten via MP3 — iTunes — Web Site) If this is your first intro­duc­tion to Radi­o­lab, you’ll even­tu­al­ly thank us. Hands down, it’s one of the best cul­tur­al pro­duc­tions on radio/the web.

This video comes to us via Bill, who dis­cov­ered it on Devour, a new web site that hopes to intel­li­gent­ly curate YouTube’s mil­lions of videos.

Richard Dawkins & John Lennox Debate Science & Atheism

in Current Affairs, Religion | August 10th, 2010

No one debates quite as well as an Oxford pro­fes­sor. And so today we fea­ture two Oxford profs – athe­ist biol­o­gist Richard Dawkins and Chris­t­ian math­e­mati­cian John Lennox – debat­ing God and sci­ence in … of all places … Birm­ing­ham, Alaba­ma. The debate turns large­ly on a ques­tion raised in Dawkins’ 2006 best­seller, The God Delu­sion: To what extent can reli­gious belief and seri­ous sci­en­tif­ic dis­cov­ery go hand-in-hand? The debate is live­ly, and the thought seri­ous. A good way to spend 90+ min­utes. And Brazil­ian read­ers, you’re in luck. You get sub­ti­tles. If you would like to pur­chase a copy of the debate, you can buy it through the Fixed Point Foun­da­tion, the Chris­t­ian orga­ni­za­tion that orga­nized the event. You can also watch a ver­sion of the debate on the Fixed Point web site here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

50 Famous Aca­d­e­mics & Sci­en­tists Talk About God

50 Famous Aca­d­e­mics & Sci­en­tists Talk About God — Part II

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