Reddit mentions of Calculus

You can start by taking some calculus classes or you can go ahead and teach yourself, this is the book i used in college, grasp single variable then move onto mutli-variable, a solid grip of math will definitely help you teach physics. Good luck!!

> Because acquiring advanced degrees and topic understanding and using it to write textbooks is a get-rich-quick scheme. Or maybe, just possibly, a few professors etc. do it because they like teaching? Because they like to see their work brought to the next level by the next generation?

I absolutely agree that that is why the vast, vast majority of professors do it. I didn't mean to imply that it's a get-rich-quick scheme. My point is that they should be treated just like any other author who endeavors to write a scholarly book, whether used in a college curriculum or not.

> As you might say, it sounds like these students ought to find a new place of higher education.

The "buy the latest edition of the book or else, because there's some new pictures and new homework problems in it, but no new content" system works the same at any college or university in America. If you can find one where it doesn't, I'd be glad to hear about it.

As I said in another post, I have no objection to a professor or anybody else endeavoring to author a scholarly textbook and be adequately compensated for it. That's a very good thing. My gripe is with repackaging the same content as "new" every 2-3 years to make extra cash and burden students with more debt.

For instance, there's things like this: Understanding Nutrition: 12th Edition. Retails for $178 at Barnes & Noble, or $150+ at Amazon. Now take a look at the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th editions. They can be had for as low as $0.01, and, according to the Amazon comments, editions 8-11 are identical except for some more modern-looking graphs and the order of some sections slightly rearranged. Version 12 has one revamped chapter, the first substantial change in four editions. Yet, if you go to any university in America, they will require you buy the latest and greatest edition.

Perhaps a better example: here's the calculus book I used as an undergrad in 1999. Fourth edition, can be had for $2.13. Twelve years later, they've since released three more editions, and now the latest one cannot be purchased for less than $164. Has basic calculus methodology really changed so much in the past 12-13 years to necessitate three new versions just to keep up with all those immense changes, costing the incoming student an extra $162 for this one single book? Maybe. But probably, they know students take calculus year after year, so why not change the homework problems every edition, add a new intro, and voila! Extra cash!

I'm not condoning ripping off someone's hard work. My point is, the business model that the textbook industry has set up is unethical.

To take your Dark Knight analogy, if I want to study The Dark Knight, I believe I should be able to buy a used copy of the single-disc widescreen DVD version for $1.04 and pass my Dark Knight class. But my university is making me buy the special edition 5-disc Blu-ray set for $150 because there's some extra on there that has nothing to do with my comprehension of the movie, yet there will be test questions on it, so I have to shell out. It makes no sense.