New Textbook Forums!

Greg Bernhardt

PF is pleased to announce the opening of four new textbook forums (Physics/Astonomy, Mathematics, Engineering, Other Sciences). Micromass was developing an excellent Bibliography in the Science Book Discussion forum and we wanted to expand it even further! Each textbook category will host threads for individual textbooks. These threads should be used to house members comments, tips, reviews and discussion about that specific textbook. We think this will be a great resource!

Note, to keep the content organized, members are not allow to create new threads, only reply to existing textbook threads. btw, because the threads are organized by topic prefix, it can be very handy to filter by prefix. This ability can be found at the bottom left of the forum listing page.

Obviously we have just the tip of the iceberg of textbooks listed, it will take time and we need your help. There is a sticky atop each of the forums for you to request a listing. We need members to tell us what books you are using in class so we can create the listing.

Here are the forums, enjoy!


Physics & Astronomy Textbooks
http://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=224

Mathematics Textbooks
http://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=225

Engineering Textbooks
http://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=226

Other Science Textbooks
http://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=227

n10Newton

Thats nice. How about a poll on top as options
1.I have used this book and this is the best.
2.I read this but this is not good.
3.This is the worst book I ever used.
4.This is good but I have a good alternative to that Book.

Greg Bernhardt

Very good suggestion! We will consider it!

AlephZero

In the Engineering list you have two threads for Hibbeler, Eng. Mech - Dynamics.

The Amazon links are for different editions (12th and 13th) but there is nothing in the PF threads to show the difference.

I don't know if that specific example happened by accident or design (and I haven't searched for any more examples), but since popular textbooks often go through several editions with little change I think you need a strategic decision on how to handle it.

Personally I would go for one thread for all editions, unless a "new edition" is really a different book published under the old name.

In any case, it would be valuable to include the edition number somewhere prominent (e.g. the thread title), otherwise "editorial entropy" will increase with time!

Greg Bernhardt

Thanks for the catch! We do indeed want one thread for all editions. We will include the edition in near future. Thanks for all the feedback! We'll get it running like a well oiled machine soon enough! :)

AlephZero

Re the link on the front page: "Science book discussion" has a different connotation for me than "Scence textbook discussion". "Book" could include pop-sci, history and philosophy of science, etc...

Greg Bernhardt

Thanks, forgot to change that :)

Greg Bernhardt

I am adding polls to each thread now

G01

This is a great change!

ChiralWaltz

Wonderful! The "forum feedback and announcements" has low visibility to me. Perhaps a sticky advertising text book ratings in the homework help section would help generate more votes?

Greg Bernhardt

I'll make a forum wide announcement shortly :)

Pythagorean

Other Sciences:

Neuroscience:

Neuroscience by Dale Purves
From Molecules to Networks by John H. Byrne
Mathematical Neuroscience by Bard Ermentrout
Spikes, Decisions, and Actions by Hugh R. Wilson

Pythagorean

Physics:

Classical:

Electrodynamics by David J Griffiths

dlgoff

Low priority.

It would be nice to see a new "tab" when clicking on a particular text book so you can have several possible ones to compare or choose from.

Gad

Brilliant idea! This is an excellent addition to the forum.

Petek

I really like this new approach! One comment: In the math section, all the threads that are tagged with Topology display in bold (at least in my browser - Firefox 18.0.1 on Windows 7). This makes it appear that these threads always have unread items. Can this be changed?

mfb

Your browser can do this. I doubt vBulletin can be configured (without ugly hacks) to behave differently in those forums.

That is a bug in the prefix itself, its <b>-tags are not correct.


Probably hard to find if you do not know it exists: At the bottom left of the page, it is possible to filter for specific prefixes.
As far as I know, it is not possible to sort the forums based on those prefixes.