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  4. Are there humorous textbooks?
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Are there humorous textbooks?

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Offline chiralSPO (OP)

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Are there humorous textbooks?
« on: 30/11/2020 20:47:28 »
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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Online Bored chemist

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Re: Are there humorous textbooks?
« Reply #1 on: 30/11/2020 22:10:10 »
I think the "For Dummies" books are about as good as it gets.
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Re: Are there humorous textbooks?
« Reply #2 on: 01/12/2020 08:40:16 »
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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Re: Are there humorous textbooks?
« Reply #3 on: 01/12/2020 08:45:02 »
"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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Offline chiralSPO (OP)

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Re: Are there humorous textbooks?
« Reply #4 on: 01/12/2020 13:29:36 »
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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Offline axscientist

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Re: Are there humorous textbooks?
« Reply #5 on: 02/12/2020 00:08:38 »
I believe that if you go online and search, you'll find a few. I recommend the Thing Explainer.
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