Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: chiralSPO on 30/11/2020 20:47:28
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Every once and a while I will see an author throw in one or two "witty" comments into their otherwise dry textbooks. I have also seen spoof textbooks that are brimming with jokes and ridiculously false statements.
Are there any examples of textbooks (college level) that present factually correct information in a cohesive way, but using a humorous (college level; crass, taboo, cynical etc.) approach in how the material is presented or how questions are framed?
For example, instead of a statistics book using coins flips and dice (or even gambling) for explaining things, imagine learning about probabilities like:
"Chad has two girlfriends, and neither knows of the other. If Alice comes over to spend the night on average twice per week, and Bertha comes over on average one night a week (each being a random, independent event), how long can Chad expect to keep up the ruse?"
(hopefully funnier than that, but you get the idea)
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I think the "For Dummies" books are about as good as it gets.
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Last year, my family gave me a present of "General Relativity for Babies" and "Quantum Theory for Babies".
Both with very thick, baby-proof pages.
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"Thing Explainer" is also very good - it includes many topics, including space rockets and nuclear weapons, expounded using the most common 1,000 words in the English language (expounded is not among them...).
- It's helped by a lot of cartoons
- And an absence of maths, so it's not college-level
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Yes, the Thing Explainer is probably the closest to what I had in mind, but still not quite.
It seems there might be a vacuum here, and I may have found my next project...
*Cue evil laughter*
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I believe that if you go online and search, you'll find a few. I recommend the Thing Explainer.