Reddit mentions: The best antiques & collectibles encyclopedias

My oldest, now 10, sounds much like your son. He showed an interest in science from about the same age. He won the 4th grade science fair this year. :D

OK, done with my bragging. There are a lot of good videos & documentaries on youtube & netflix also. It really depends on what your son's methods of learning are. Personally, visual, with followup conversations seemed to work best with him. All kids learn differently, so if he seems to be getting bored, try something new.

This book is his ALL TIME favorite book. Here is another that the two of you can do together.

Find what works best for him, and switch it up often to make sure he is staying excited. Bright young minds have a tendency to wander fast when they're not being engaged. Good luck, and congrats on raising a great kid!

I actually just searched for this sub with this exact question in mind! However I was thinking of something that introduced species chronologically, (i.e. starts with the messy buggers in the pre-cambrian, and works it's way through as much as we know).

Basically sparked by reading up on saber-toothed cats and finding out they're not actually Felidae, and I realised that while I absolutely love reading about pre-historic life, I really don't have much basis in knowing fully the various branches of life that have existed. Convergent evolution is amazing to read about, but so is evolution itself!

Just wish-listed these three books (1, 2, 3) on amazon, wondering if anyone could recommend if any of those might be what I'm looking for in terms of prehistoric life overall (and not just dinosaurs, though dinosaurs are obviously super cool too) but also possibly recommend any, as I know these are very broad overview encyclopedia's with pretty pictures. Don't mind detail and complexity, but not that interested in the process of excavations and such as it relates to palaeontology.

That's a beautiful watch, both inside and out, and I don't think you overpaid at all. Congratulations on the excellent acquisition.

I can't help but notice the similarities to my late 1940s Gruen import Chrono-timer. From Gruen Watches: A Collector's Guide "...the company found it necessary to import cases (and in some instances complete watches) from outside sources to create a certain look or fulfill a certain market niche that could not be met by the company's in house movement and/or its regular case suppliers located in the United States."

The movement has plenty of Gruen markings on it, but it wouldn't be hard to change a few dies in a production line. I wonder if Leonidas made this movement? I'll have to look into this, thanks for the information!

Although there exists Judaism (the religion) and the Jewish people (the ethnic group descended from Israelites and Hebrews), the Jewish people are also often called an "ethnoreligious group" because their identity and history are seen as strongly interrelated with their religion (its contents and history). For example, Boyarin - Orthodox Jew and historian of religion - argues the following:

>Jewishness disrupts the very categories of identity, because it is not national, not genealogical, not religious, but all of these, in dialectical tension with one another.

The interrelation between the two and the term "Jew" is ancient. Per the Encyclopedia Judaica:

>After the destruction of Israel only Judah remained, and the term “Yehudi,” or “Jew,” then lost its specific connection with the Southern Kingdom. This is strikingly illustrated in Esther 2:5, 5:13, where Mordecai, although belonging to the tribe of Benjamin, is called a Yehudi. This term was also utilized at that time for the Jewish religion since it is related that, after Haman’s downfall, many from among the people of the land converted to Judaism (mityahadim, Esth.8:17). The term “Jew” connoted by this time a religious, political, and national entity, without differentiation between these categories.

The definition of Jew it provides is halakhic, which is how "Jew" is historically determined:

>Halakhic Definition

>Both a child born of Jewish parents and a convert to Judaism are considered Jews, possessing both the sanctity of the Jewish people (Ex. 19:6) and the obligation to observe the commandments [...]

---

Regarding halakhah, Dorff explains:

>Halakhah, the word used to refer to Jewish law, comes from the Hebrew root meaning “to walk” or “to go”; this indicates that Jewish law prescribes a path through life, detailing what an individual should and should not do, according to divine commandments (∗mitzvot) as they have been interpreted and applied by legal scholars throughout the ages.

>Halakhah occupies a central place in Jewish identity. Although theological convictions define Jewish understandings of ∗God, humanity, the ∗environment, and the relationships among them, Judaism has never defined itself in terms of official creeds. Instead, the focus is on actions. At the same time, ∗Judaism, in general, and Jewish norms of conduct, in particular, are not defined exclusively by halakhah. Stories, proverbs, ∗prayers, ∗thought, history, and ethical and theological convictions all shape how Jews understand themselves and determine how they should act [...]

>Now that Jews are citizens of the countries in which they live, they are governed by the state in civil and criminal matters. This means that individual Jews must determine for themselves how much authority halakhah will have in other areas of their lives. This has led to great diversity in Jewish practice and in Jewish interpretations of the ongoing authority of halakhah. Orthodox, Conservative, Reconstructionist, and Reform ∗Judaisms differ on these issues, within denominations as well as with the other movements.

---

The question of who is a Jew is a big question. See also what Encyclopedia of Judaism compiled by Karesh and Hurvitz has to say:

>The term Jew was first used as a reference to anyone who came from ERETZ YISRAEL (the Land of Israel) during the first EXILE in BABYLONIA. Prior to the exile these people were referred to as Bnei Yisrael, Children of Israel, emphasizing the lineage to the PATRIARCHS. Since those who remained and returned after the first Exile descended mostly from the tribe of JUDAH, whose territory had abutted JERUSALEM, they came to be known as Jews (Neh 1:2). During the time of the Greeks and Romans, and the second Exile beginning in 70 C.E., those whose ancestors came from Eretz Yisrael became known as ioudaios, or Jews.

Regarding Jewish identity,

>The question of Jewish identity in the modern world is complex, involving not just a person’s religious beliefs and affiliation but also his or her cultural and national identity. As the modern world became more secular, so too did the Jews (see ACCOMODATION; ASSIMILATION; MODERNITY). ORTHODOX JUDAISM defines Jewish identity fairly simply: anyone who was born to a Jewish mother or who observes Jewish law (HALAKHAH) is Jewish. In this traditional realm, it is clear that a Jew is a person who participates in Jewish rituals and believes in the tenets of the Jewish tradition.

>Yet many people in the modern world think of themselves as Jews even though they reject the binding nature of Jewish law, as has occurred in REFORM JUDAISM and RECONSTRUCTIONIST JUDAISM, and even if they do not affiliate with any Jewish religious movement at all. The issue becomes one of group identification and self-identification: how people perceive themselves, and how the family, school, and Jewish community impact the development of a person’s identity as a child and
into adulthood.

>Orthodox and Conservative institutions only recognize a person as a Jew if he or she has a Jewish mother or has formally converted to Judaism. Reform Judaism considers a person a Jew even if only the father is Jewish and the person is raised as a Jew. This creates tensions between the movements regarding Jewish identity [...]

>Mordecai KAPLAN, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, defined Judaism not as a religion, but as a civilization, with its own land, language, laws, sanctions, art, and social structure. Kaplan felt that religion was but one aspect of Jewish identity, and the Jew in the modern world seems to agree, finding myriad ways to be Jewish inside and outside of religious life.

---

For illustration, according to the Pew Research Center,

>Nearly all Jews in the United States and Israel say they are proud to be Jewish, and large majorities in both countries say they feel a strong sense of belonging to the Jewish people. But the two Jewish communities do not always agree about what it means to be Jewish, according to a new Pew Research Center survey of religion in Israel (compared with our 2013 survey of U.S. Jews) [...]

>The notion that a person can be Jewish even without observing the Sabbath or believing in God may be tied to the idea held by many Jews that being Jewish is more about ancestry or culture than about religion. Indeed, a plurality of Jews in Israel (55%) and a majority in the U.S. (62%) say this is the case for them personally, although 23% in each country say their Jewish identity is about religion and ancestry/culture equally.

What level of dynamical systems are we talking here? Graduate or undergraduate. In the former case I would recommend: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Dynamical-Encyclopedia-Mathematics-Applications/dp/0521575575
and for an undergraduate approach I would recommend:
http://www.amazon.com/Differential-Equations-Dynamical-Introduction-Mathematics/dp/0123497035
Both are pretty fun introductions to the subject. Good luck in your search

It's a relatively young field, so I don't think it's been digested into textbook format as well as some fields. Most texts I've seen are pretty dense and require a pretty strong background in stochastic analysis (mix two parts functional analysis, one part measure theory, boil down to a thick tar). I'd also be interested in finding a good book, so let me know if you find something geared more towards a run-of-the-mill applied math guy than these suggestions, which are what I've been using:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.4178

http://www.amazon.com/Stochastic-Dimensions-Encyclopedia-Mathematics-Applications/dp/0521385296

I was really interested in it in my teens (mid 70s) I used to buy the UFO magazines and watch the rare UFO show on television. Back then there was no way to do research on the inet anything you wanted to look up had to be at the library. I spent a lot of time there.

In the last 15 years I have had the opportunity to spend a little more money on books like The UFO Encyclopedia and more time on the inet and have found a lot of what I thought I knew to be baloney. Cases that I thought were unsolvable were misidentification or just outright lies by some that just wanted to make a quick buck.

Now I just read the reports for a laugh, I guess if I were to have the same thrill as a kid I would need someone to come up with an actual piece of a craft to convince me to believe.

I couldn't recommend The UFO Encyclopedia more. Its the best book in the field.

Sucks you're being downvoted. FWIW, the logo was used because James Norris thought it fit Detroit but it actually came from a Montreal club that had cycling roots. From 'Total Hockey: The Official Encyclopedia of the National Hockey League':

"Norris had been a member of the Montreal Amateur Athletic Association, a sporting club with cycling roots. The MAAA's teams were known by their club emblem and these Winged Wheelers were the first winners of the Stanley Cup in 1893. Norris decided that a version of their logo was perfect for a team playing in the Motor City and on October 5, 1932 the club was renamed the Red Wings."

I unreservedly agree but the very same thing could perhaps be said of the logical positivist broader practical goal (primarily via Neurath as I discuss above) of a universal scientific language. Logical positivism was part of Neurath's broader "Unity of Science" socio-scientific ambitions.

Both Popper's and the positivists' practical ambitions, however, are not popular with Philosophers of Science. The major point of this post is to ask why not?

Here's a picture of the last time someone tried printing a huge number of articles from the English language Wikipedia. It's basically impossible to print a single book of that size, so I'll assume it will be printed in many volumes like existing encyclopedias. According to this article, Wikipedia would currently fit into 2,762 volumes, each of which contains roughly 1.6 million words.

Weight is the easier part. Amazon says the Encyclopedia Britannica's 32 volumes weigh a total of 66.6 pounds. That words out to a per-volume weight of 2.08 pounds. Multiplying that by the total number of volumes gives 5,748 pounds (2,607 kg).

Now for reading time.

1.6 million words * 2,762 volumes = 4,419,200,000 total words

This study says that fast readers can read at around 330 words per minute. Assume you can maintain that pace for 12 hours every day (a big assumption). Doing the math gives us a total of around 51 years.

Bufinch's Mythology
http://www.amazon.com/Bulfinchs-Mythology-Modern-Library-Classics/dp/0375751475

The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures
http://www.amazon.com/The-Element-Encyclopedia-Magical-Creatures/dp/140273543X

Mythology.wikia
http://mythology.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Mythical_creatures

A Complete Guide to Faeries & Magical Beings
http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Guide-Faeries-Magical-Beings/dp

Good luck, be safe. Don't say thank you.

I grew up on Encyclopedia Brown. Some of his mysteries became a bit dated over time, but still sound.

My biggest issue - and it actually isn't with the Encyclopedia Brown character himself - was the lending of his name to:

Encyclopedia Brown's Record Book of Weird and Wonderful Facts

This was one of those "Weird Fact" books that all nerds loved back in the day. Filled with trivia and mundane "facts" about all sorts of things.

And so many of them were utter poppycock.

I cringe to think of how many of these "factoids" I regurgitated. How much erroneous information did I squirrel away in my brain that was wrong. Must I second guess everything I ever knew?

Donald Sobol wasn't the only perpetrator of mis-information. But I trusted Encyclopedia Brown and by extension, I trusted Mr. Sobol. And it is this book that burns in my memory as a pillar of fabrication and fancy.


Edit - I went ahead and bought a copy for the singular purpose of determining how much of it is crap.

Well, that means that the author has access to 5 separate editions, which I would think should be difficult to obtain. But, you're right that the 11th Edition is freely available online. A replica of the first edition can be purchased for nearly $200, but there's no guarantee it has the same number of pages as the original. I couldn't find anything about the third, fourth, or fifth editions.

The 15th edition is 32-volumes, so it seems like only using 5 of them would have been an underutilization of the resource. I'm also not sure if page numbers are continuous across volumes. It doesn't look like this is the case, since Volume II of the eleventh edition begins on page 1.

I had this one as a kid, but it's not brown, and there are tons like it. Have you browsed Amazon for mythological creatures? There's a brown one that pops up here.

A dynamical systems reference book might be appropriate, e.g. Introduction to the Modern Theory of Dynamical Systems by Katok and Hasselblatt.

In the book by Broer and Takens it is remarked (p. 123) that the Russian terminology is slightly different. A topological conjugation is called an 'orbital equivalence'. That might help you find additional material.

All I can tell you is it's probably Italian, looks very similar to This knife. Maybe you can find someone with a Goins' Encyclopedia or something like it to help you with the markings.

Here is also a 13" similar one

> scholarly journals, or newspapers, something along those lines.

Hmm I recommend checking the chapters on use of sources in a book like this or this.

> can you recommend an encyclopedia? I can only find them focused on weapons or survivor skills or witchcraft and other really specific subjects.
Britannica was the last set I purchased. Mine is a few years old though you might be able to check them out from a local library because they are pricey.

http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Britannica-32-Book-Set/dp/0852299613

Being a part of the Haplorhini clade does not make an individual member a monkey. If it did, Apes would be monkeys, which they are not. Modern members of the clade Haplorrhini are monkeys if they are not Hominidae, but the common ancestors between those groups are not members within those groups; they are not old world or new world monkeys themselves. The common ancestor of modern apes and monkeys is not a monkey, as it does not have the anatomical feature required to be classified as a monkey.

I recommend the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution

you might enjoy the readings and the teachings in this book https://www.amazon.com/Celebrating-New-Moon-Chodesh-Anthology/dp/1568214596#customerReviews

Here's a good one, it's got pictures too!

I'm fond of this book.

One day in the distant future, advanced technology will allow us to search out a specific term we're not sure about, like cladding, to figure out what it refers to.

For now, you're stuck using a dictionary, or an encyclopedia if the definition is too ambiguous for you. I'd highly recommend Encyclopedia Britannica if your copy of Webster's or the Oxford English Dictionary is insufficient, or if someone borrowed it and never returned it.

http://www.amazon.com/Element-Encyclopedia-Magical-Creatures-Fantastic/dp/140273543X/
I have this book personally. I really like it. It gives you everything from mythological to modern day legends.

Well now, you can!

I can recommend "The Craft of Research" http://www.amazon.com/Research-Chicago-Writing-Editing-Publishing/dp/0226065685

The title is a bit misleading. This book is far more about writing non-fiction than it is advice about doing the preparatory research. I used this when writing my doctoral thesis. If you are going to embark upon such a project, I highly recommend getting your hands on a copy. It's worth owning your own, but if you can't, try to look at one in a library.

Looking around my office, the most promising one is The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. It's a bit expensive, but the authors are top-notch.

this was mine.

(This is a good start.)[Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0751309559/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_GI7QzbC3DZ15K] Darren Naish is good but I doubt much of his work will be in whatever language writes palæontology.

>Of your average 1 TB drive, how much is eaten up with system files, music, movies, caches, games, applications, overhead for DRM (think wrappers around text, a la PDF), etc.

Beside the point - we are talking entirely storage here, for which you can dedicate an entire 1TB (or whatever) hard drive.

To ignore the XML arguments, you can go by Wikipedia's word count, which it states is 50x the Encyclopaedia Britannica for English, or 160x for all languages. Words aren't the best comparison for data, but I think it's fair to say that the average word length will be almost identical for that much writing, so the amount of data stored scales roughly with number of words.

This 32-volume version of the EB is quoted at 32,640 pages. The going rate I can find on the internet for book printing is approximately 1p per page (e.g. Amazon's price), although I suspect you could reduce this if you were printing a lot of books.

At that rate, the EB would be £326.40, and English Wikipedia would be about £16,320. For comparison, I could buy two 3TB hard drives for the price of one EB, easily containing Wikipedia (including all that metadata) several hundred times over! You would have to get your printing costs ridiculously low (e.g. £15 for the entire 32-volume EB) to start getting below the costs of storing Wikipedia on USB sticks, let alone hard drives.