From the Physics Research Conference 2015-2016
on Thursday, November 19, 2015 at 4:00 pm
at the California Institute of Technology, East Bridge 201 – Norman Bridge Laboratory of Physics, East
In recent years we have learned that the physics of quantum information plays a crucial role in the emergence of spacetime from microscopic degrees of freedom.
I will review the idea that entanglement is the glue which holds spacetime together and show how Einstein’s equations plausibly emerge from this perspective. One ubiquitous feature of these dynamical equations is the formation of black holes, so I will conclude by discussing some new ideas about the nature of spacetime inside a black hole.
Brian Swingle, postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics and physicist focusing on quantum matter, quantum information, and quantum gravity
in Physics Research Conference | Caltech
n Veterans Day this year, which lands very near the release of the film Trumbo starring Bryan Cranston, I thought I’d take a moment to remember my old friend and mentor Millard Kaufman.
Millard not only fought for us in the war, but when he came back home he helped to defend our right to free speech and our ability to pursue happiness in a very fundamental way in his career as a screenwriter. I often hear friends in the entertainment industry say, “This isn’t brain surgery, we’re not saving lives, here.” but in a great sense Millard was doing that in small steps throughout his career. Millard Kaufman enlisted in the Marines in 1942, served on Guadalcanal, landed at Guam with the 1st Marine Brigade (Provisional) where he wrote an article for the Marine Corps Gazette about the battle, then participated in the Battle of Okinawa with the 6th Marine Division.
I met Millard 20 years ago in 1995 on a trip to Los Angeles with Matt Gross while we were ostensibly programming the 1995 Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium entitled “Framing Society: A Century of Cinema” which coincided with the 100th anniversary of film. Dr. John Irwin, the long-time head of the Writing Seminars Department at Johns Hopkins, had provided us with a long distance introduction as Millard was a Hopkins alum from the class of ’39. So we met him at his home in the Hollywood Hills looking out over a forested sanctuary. Over our first simple tuna fish sandwich lunch, we began a friendship that spanned the next decade and a half.
Most may remember Millard Kaufman, if at all, as the co-creator of the cartoon character Mr. Magoo, who he based on his uncle, while many others will know his Academy Award nominated films Take the High Ground (1953) or Bad Day at Black Rock (1955). I’ll always remember him for his charm, his wry wit, his ability to swear comfortably in any company, and his sense of fairness.
Apparently Hollywood itself has glossed over his contribution to helping to maintain Dalton Trumbo’s writing career in the recent release of Trumbo (2015), in which he isn’t mentioned (or portrayed on screen). [I’ll note here that I haven’t yet seen the movie, and may boycott it for the slight.] It is here in which Kaufman’s strong internal moral compass pressured him to help ensure Trumbo’s freedom of speech and, in part, his writing career. In short, the House Un-American Activities Committee’s (HUAC) pressured Trumbo which resulted in Trumbo’s being blacklisted in Hollywood and effectively destroying his writing career.
Trumbo and Kaufman shared the same agent at the time, George Willner. One day, relatively early in Kaufman’s career, Willner approached him to see if he would be willing to put his name on the script Gun Crazy that would turn into the 1950 film-noir crime classic to allow it to get made. As Millard told me many times, “I didn’t have much sense then, but at least I had sense enough to say, ‘Let me talk it over with Laurie’ [his wife].” “But we discussed it and we believed it was rotten that a man couldn’t write under his own name,” Kaufman told Daily Variety in 1992. That same year Kaufman, a board member of WGAw, officially requested that the Writers Guild take his name off the credits and replace it with Dalton Trumbo’s name. Kaufman’s fronting for Trumbo helped allow the film to get made, and Trumbo’s career to continue on, even if in the dark. As a board member of the Writer’s Guild Millard helped to restore credits to many writers of the blacklist era who were similarly slighted as a result of their politics at the time. It’s a travesty, that a film gets made highlighting this exact period in Trumbo’s life, but Millard’s small contribution to it has been all but forgotten. Fortunately there are enough who do remember to tell the story.
When I think of Millard and his various contributions, my favorite is always that he wrote the stunning script for Bad Day at Black Rock (MGM, 1955), a superb Western suspense film starring Spencer Tracy as a one-armed veteran facing mysterious enemies in a small desert town. The film shows how post-World War II America could be be both horrifyingly racist and cowardly, but it also showed a way out through Tracy’s character which always reminds me of Millard’s high-mindedness. It was such a great film, I was personally honored to screen it on November 3, 1995, as the premiere film in Shriver Hall after we had mounted a year-long renovation of the film equipment, screen, and sound system. The day before we were all honored to have Millard speak on “Censorship in Film” as part of the Milton S. Eisenhower Symposium.
For those who never had the chance to meet him, I’m including a short 3 minute video of several clips of him talking about a variety of topics. The Millard portrayed here is the no-holds barred man I’ll always remember. Thanks for fighting for all of us, Millard!
For those looking for more information about Millard Kaufman, I’ll include the following articles:
If they don’t like it, they can go fuck themselves. Over so much of my life I’ve been limited by writing for pictures. There’s certain things you can’t say, certain things you can’t show. In the book I found I had much greater freedom than when I was writing for pictures.
Millard Kaufman, on writing novels. Quoted in Vulture while discussing his debut novel Bowl of Cherries.
“…[Millard] is the only first-time novelist I’ve met who could relate first-hand writing advice from Charlie Chaplin.”
Jordan Bass, editor, McSweeney’s in Salon (April 21, 2010).
I know you’ve all been waiting for the announcement with bated breath! We’ve known for a while that Mike Miller’s Winter course would be a follow-on course to his Algebraic Number Theory course this Fall, but it’s been officially posted, so now you can register for it: Algebraic Number Theory: The Sequel.
I’m sure, as always, that there are a few who are interested, but who couldn’t make the Fall lectures. Never fear, there’s a group of us that can help you get up to speed to keep pace with us during the second quarter. Just drop us a note and we’ll see what we can do.
Algebraic Number Theory: The Sequel
In no field of mathematics is there such an irresistible fascination as in the theory of numbers. This course, the second in a two-quarter sequence, is an introductory, yet rigorous, survey of algebraic number theory, which evolved historically through attempts to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem. Beginning with a quick review of the previous quarter’s work, the course continues discussions on the structure of algebraic number fields, focusing particular attention on primes, units, and roots of unity in quadratic, cubic, and cyclotomic fields. Topics to be discussed include: norms and traces; the ideal class group; Minkowski’s Translate, Convex Body, and Linear Forms theorems; and Dirichlet’s Unit Theorem.
UCLA: 5137 Math Sciences
Tuesday, 7-10pm,
January 5 – March 15
11 meetings total
MATH X450.9
3.00 units
Recommended Textbook
We’ll be using Introductory Algebraic Number Theory by Saban Alaca and Kenneth S. Williams (Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN: 978-0521183048).
How to Bake Pi: An Edible Exploration of the Mathematics of Mathematics by Eugenia Cheng
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
While most of the book is material I’ve known for a long time, it’s very well structured and presented in a clean and clear manner. Though a small portion is about category theory and gives some of the “flavor” of the subject, the majority is about how abstract mathematics works in general.
I’d recommend this to anyone who wants to have a clear picture of what mathematics really is or how it should be properly thought about and practiced (hint: it’s not the pablum you memorized in high school or even in calculus or linear algebra). Many books talk about the beauty of math, while this one actually makes steps towards actually showing the reader how to appreciate that beauty.
Like many popular books about math, this one actually has very little that goes beyond the 5th grade level, but in examples that are very helpfully illuminating given their elementary nature. The extended food metaphors and recipes throughout the book fit in wonderfully with the abstract nature of math – perhaps this is why I love cooking so much myself.
I wish I’d read this book in high school to have a better picture of the forest of mathematics.
For five years he [Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)] served as personal secretary to, yes, Francis Bacon. In fact, I’ve noted over a course of years that the job of a secretary can be utterly fulfilling just in case one’s boss happens to be Francis Bacon.
A nice little thriller about an obscure text from the Renaissance (quattrocento) set in modern times. This falls into the genre of historical fiction that’s similar to Dan Brown‘s Robert Langdon series or films like the Nicolas Cage National Treasure series, though not quite as “rompish.” I have to imagine that those who liked Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Gentlemen and Players, and The Thirteenth Tale will enjoy this quite a lot.
Those who are fans of historical fiction, cryptography, puzzles, books about books, and history in general, are sure to enjoy it.
Spoilers follow:
The Vincent Taft character could have been a better “heavy” but was pretty functional in the story given his limited appearances in the actual plot. I saw the Savonarola portion of the plot a mile away, but to most unaware of this part of history this will be an interesting historical diversion/lesson. I thought the ending was a bit too literary given the more plot-motivated feel of the rest of the narrative, but in all, it was relatively satisfying given Tom’s full back-story. I can see this being adapted into film, but it will take some creative ideas to better linearize the plot and to make the ending a bit bigger for the screen.
s I watch the unfolding of the 2016 presidential election, I find myself wondering more and more where I can register to vote for the “scientific party?”
The electorate seems to want to focus primarily (only?) on the Judeo-Christian principles upon which our country was founded. Though I have no qualm with these principles, they seem to miss the firmer and primary base upon which the country was built at the dawn of the Age of Reason.
THOSE WHO HAVE TAKEN UPON THEM TO LAY DOWN THE LAW of nature as a thing already searched out and understood, whether they have spoken in simple assurance or professional affectation, have therein done philosophy and the sciences great injury. For as they have been successful in inducing belief, so they have been effective in quenching and stopping inquiry; and have done more harm by spoiling and putting an end to other men’s efforts than good by their own.
Sir Francis Bacon, (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, orator, essayist and author
in the preface to Novum Organum (1620)
It’s almost like they write some of this stuff just for me. Though I was already aware of most of the movies they mentioned, they did miss a few:
Washington Square (1997) directed by Agnieszka Holland in Hollywood Pictures/Caravan Pictures production has a stunning cameo of the interior of the Peabody Library – this cameo is the only reason I vaguely remember the film at all.
The Johns Hopkins Science Review (1948-1955) This production is also particularly notable as being the television debut (October 8, 1951) of actor and alum John Astin who now heads the JHU Drama program and for whom the eponymous theater in the Merrick Barn is named.
Fratricide (1966) – A very independent short black and white film (with no credits) starring professor Richard Macksey that was produced by a group of students which included later Hollywood luminaries Walter Murch (who just a few years later co-wrote THX 1138 with George Lucas), Caleb Deschanel, and Matthew Robbins, who coincidentally co-wrote Crimson Peak with Guillermo del Torro which comes out in theaters today.
I have a nagging feeling there are a few more, but they’re just not coming to me at the moment…
By the way, for those suffering through Head of State, you should know in advance that the Shriver Hall scene doesn’t appear until the very end of the movie and then plays through the credits.
More like Johns Hopkins, Fall 2009. Johns Hopkins was a prettier more “college-y” campus, so it got cast over Harvard as Harvard in “The Social Network.”
I know many people who could identify a fake Louis Vuitton (LVMH) purse, a knock off Christian Louboutin, or a sham Rolex, but who simultaneously are overly religious about their food brands and topics like organic food and couldn’t similarly identify the fakes they’re eating because of fraud in food labeling and misdirection and legerdemain within the food supply chain. Finally there’s a course to help everyone become smarter consumers.
The food industry is one of the most important commercial sectors in the world. Everyone uses it, but how many people abuse it? As we witness the increasing globalisation of the supply chain, a growing challenge is verifying the questionable identity of raw materials in the food we eat.
In this course we will look at topical issues concerning ‘food fraud’ and explore ways in which analytical chemistry can help in its identification and prevention. We’ll share fascinating examples, such as the history of white bread and a surprising ingredient once found in bitter beer.
The University of East Anglia has joined forces with the world-renowned Institute of Food Research (IFR) to bring you this unique course. You’ll be led by Kate Kemsley, a specialist in the use of advanced instrumentation for measuring the chemical composition of food materials. Course content is linked with UEA’s MChem postgraduate programme, which supports final-year students’ practical research projects in this area of science.
Congratulations on your new math class, and welcome to the “family”!
Beginners Welcome!
Invariably the handful of new students every year eventually figure the logistics of campus out, but it’s easier and more fun to know some of the options available before you’re comfortable halfway through the class. To help get you over the initial hump, I’ll share a few of the common questions and tips to help get you oriented. Others are welcome to add comments and suggestions below. If you have any questions, feel free to ask anyone in the class, we’re all happy to help.
First things first, for those who’ve never visited UCLA before, here’s a map of campus to help you orient yourself. Using the Waze app on your smartphone can also be incredibly helpful in getting to campus more quickly through the tail end of rush hour traffic.
Whether you’re a professional mathematician, engineer, physicist, physician, or even a hobbyist interested in mathematics you’ll be sure to get something interesting out of Dr. Miller’s math courses, not to mention the camaraderie of 20-30 other “regulars” with widely varying backgrounds (from actors to surgeons and evolutionary theorists to engineers) who’ve been taking almost everything Mike has offered over the years (and yes, he’s THAT good — we’re sure you’ll be addicted too.) Whether you’ve been away from serious math for decades or use it every day or even if you’ve never gone past Calculus or Linear Algebra, this is bound to be the most entertaining thing you can do with your Tuesday nights in the Autumn and Winter. If you’re not sure what you’re getting into (or are scared a bit by the course description), I highly encourage to come and join us for at least the first class before you pass up on the opportunity. I’ll mention that the greater majority of new students to Mike’s classes join the ever-growing group of regulars who take almost everything he teaches subsequently.
Don’t be intimidated if you feel like everyone in the class knows each other fairly well — most of us do. Dr. Miller and mathematics can be addictive so many of us have been taking classes from him for 5-20+ years, and over time we’ve come to know each other.
Tone of Class
If you’ve never been to one of Dr. Miller’s classes before, they’re fairly informal and he’s very open to questions from those who don’t understand any of the concepts or follow his reasoning. He’s a retired mathematician from RAND and long-time math professor at UCLA. Students run the gamut from the very serious who read multiple textbooks and do every homework problem to hobbyists who enjoy listening to the lectures and don’t take the class for a grade of any sort (and nearly every stripe in between). He’ll often recommend a textbook that he intends to follow, but it’s never been a “requirement” and more often that not, the bookstore doesn’t list or carry his textbook until the week before class. (Class insiders will usually find out about the book months before class and post it to the Google Group – see below).
His class notes are more than sufficient for making it through the class and doing the assigned (optional) homework. He typically hands out homework in handout form, so the textbook is rarely, if ever, required to make it through the class. Many students will often be seen reading various other texts relating to the topic at hand as they desire. Usually he’ll spend an 45-60 minutes at the opening of each class after the first to go over homework problems or questions that anyone has.
For those taking the class for a grade or pass/fail, his usual policy is to assign a take home problem set around week 9 or 10 to be handed in at the penultimate class. [As a caveat, make sure you check his current policy on grading as things may change, but the preceding has been the usual policy for a decade or more.]
Parking Options
Lot 9 – Located at the northern terminus of Westwood Boulevard, one can purchase a parking pass for about $12 a day at the kiosk in the middle of the street just before Westwood Blvd. ends. The kiosk is also conveniently located right next to the parking structure. If there’s a basketball game or some other major event, Lot 8 is just across the street as well, though it’s just a tad further away from the Math Sciences Building. Since more of the class uses this as their parking structure of choice, there is always a fairly large group walking back there after class for the more security conscious.
Lot 2 – Located off of Hilgard Avenue, this is another common option for easy parking as well. While fairly close to class, not as many use it as it’s on the quieter/darker side of campus and can be a bit more of a security issue for the reticent.
Tip: For those opting for on-campus parking, one can usually purchase a quarter-long parking pass for a small discount at the beginning of the term.
Westwood Village and Neighborhood – Those looking for less expensive options street parking is available in the surrounding community, but use care to check signs and parking meters as you assuredly will get a ticket. Most meters in the surrounding neighborhoods end at either 6pm or 8pm making parking virtually free (assuming you’re willing to circle the neighborhood to find one of the few open spots.)
Broxton Avenue Public Parking at 1036 Broxton Avenue just across from the Fox Village and Bruin Theaters – $5 for entering after 5:01 pm / $9 max for the day
Geffen Playhouse Parking at 10928 Le Conte Ave. between Broxton and Westwood – price varies based on the time of day and potential events (screenings/plays in Westwood Village) but is usually $5 in the afternoon and throughout the evening
Dining Options
More often than not a group of between 4 and 15 students will get together every evening before class for a quick bit to eat and to catch up and chat. This has always been an informal group and anyone from class is more than welcome to join. Typically we’ll all meet in the main dining hall of Ackerman Union (Terrace Foodcourt, Ackerman Level 1) between 6 and 6:30 (some with longer commutes will arrive as early as 3-4pm, but this can vary) and dine until about 6:55pm at which time we walk over to class.
The food options on Ackerman Level 1 include Panda Express, Rubio’s Tacos, Sbarro, Wolfgang Puck, and Greenhouse along with some snack options including Wetzel’s Pretzels and a candy store. One level down on Ackerman A-level is a Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr., Jamba Juice, Kikka, Buzz, and Curbside, though one could get takeout and meet the rest of the “gang” upstairs.
There are also a number of other on-campus options as well though many are a reasonable hike from the class location. The second-closest to class is the Court of Sciences Student Center with a Subway, Yoshinoya, Bombshelter Bistro, and Fusion.
Naturally, for those walking up from Westwood Village, there are additional fast food options like In-N-Out, Chick-fil-A, Subway, and many others.
Killing Time
For those who’ve already eaten or aren’t hungry, you’ll often find one or more of us browsing the math and science sections of the campus bookstore on the ground level of Ackerman Union to kill time before class. Otherwise there are usually a handful of us who arrive a half an hour early and camp out in the classroom itself (though this can often be dauntingly quiet as most use the chance to catch up on reading here.) If you arrive really early, there are a number of libraries and study places on campus. Boelter Hall has a nice math/science library on the 8th Floor.
Mid-class Break Options
Usually about halfway through class we’ll take a 10-12 minute coffee break. For those with a caffeine habit or snacking urges, there are a few options:
Kerckhoff Hall Coffee Shop is just a building or two over and is open late as snack stop and study location. They offer coffee and various beverages as well as snacks, bagels, pastries, and ice cream. Usually 5-10 people will wander over as a group to pick up something quick.
The Math Sciences Breezeway, just outside of class, has a variety of soda, coffee, and vending machines with a range of beverages and snacks. Just a short walk around the corner will reveal another bank of vending machines if your vice isn’t covered. The majority of class will congregate in the breezeway to chat informally during the break.
The Court of Sciences Student Center, a four minute walk South, with the restaurant options noted above if you need something quick and more substantial, though few students use this option at the break.
Bathrooms – The closest bathrooms to class are typically on the 5th floor of the Math Sciences Building. The women’s is just inside the breezeway doors and slightly to the left. The men’s rooms are a bit further and are either upstairs on the 6th floor (above the women’s), or a hike down the hall to the left and into Boelter hall. I’m sure the adventurous may find others, but take care not to get lost.
Informal Class Resources
Google Group
Over the years, as an informal resource, members of the class have created and joined a private Google Group (essentially an email list-serv) to share thoughts, ideas, events, and ask questions of each other. There are over 50 people in the group, most of whom are past Miller students, though there are a few other various mathematicians, physicists, engineers, and even professors. You can request to join the private group to see the resources available there. We only ask that you keep things professional and civil and remember that replying to all reaches a fairly large group of friends. Browsing through past messages will give you an idea of the types of posts you can expect. The interface allows you to set your receipt preferences to one email per message posted, daily digest, weekly digest, or no email (you’re responsible for checking the web yourself), so be sure you have the setting you require as some messages are more timely than others. There are usually only 1-2 posts per week, so don’t expect to be inundated.
Study Groups
Depending on students’ moods, time requirements, and interests, we’ve arranged informal study groups for class through the Google Group above. Additionally, since Dr. Miller only teaches during the Fall and Winter quarters, some of us also take the opportunity to set up informal courses during the Spring/Summer depending on interests. In the past, we’ve informally studied Lie Groups, Quantum Mechanics, Algebraic Geometry, and Category Theory in smaller groups on the side.
Dropbox
As a class resource, some of us share a document repository via Dropbox. If you’d like access, please make a post to the Google Group.
Class Notes
Many people within the class use Livescribe.com digital pens to capture not only the written notes but the audio discussion that occurred in class as well (the technology also links the two together to make it easier to jump around within a particular lecture). If it helps to have a copy of these notes, please let one of the users know you’d like them – we’re usually pretty happy to share. If you miss a class (sick, traveling, etc.) please let one of us know as the notes are so unique that it will be almost like you didn’t miss anything at all.
You can typically receive a link to the downloadable version of the notes in Livescribe’s Pencast .pdf format. This is a special .pdf file but it’s a bit larger in size because it has an embedded audio file in it that is playable with the more recent version of Adobe Reader X (or above) installed. (This means to get the most out of the file you have to download the file and open it in Reader X to get the audio portion. You can view the written portion in most clients, you’ll just be missing out on all the real fun and value of the full file.) With the notes, you should be able to toggle the settings in the file to read and listen to the notes almost as if you were attending the class live.
Viewing and Playing a Pencast PDF
Pencast PDF is a new format of notes and audio that can play in Adobe Reader X or above.
You can open a Pencast PDF as you would other PDF files in Adobe Reader X. The main difference is that a Pencast PDF can contain ink that has associated audio—called “active ink”. Click active ink to play its audio. This is just like playing a Pencast from Livescribe Online or in Livescribe Desktop. When you first view a notebook page, active ink appears in green type. When you click active ink, it turns gray and the audio starts playing. As audio playback continues, the gray ink turns green in synchronization with the audio. Non-active ink (ink without audio) is black and does not change appearance.
Audio Control Bar
Pencast PDFs have an audio control bar for playing, pausing, and stopping audio playback. The control bar also has jump controls, bookmarks (stars), and an audio timeline control.
Active Ink View Button
There is also an active ink view button. Click this button to toggle the “unwritten” color of active ink from gray to invisible. In the default (gray) setting, the gray words turn green as the audio plays. In the invisible setting, green words seem to write themselves on blank paper as the audio plays.
History
For those interested in past years’ topics, here’s the list I’ve been able to put together thus far:
The more I read of Henry James Korn‘s work, the more I love both it and him. Nothing pleases or honors me more than to be part of the process of not only re-releasing several of his prior works, but to be part of the team releasing his debut novel. Toward that end, I’m happy to announce (on what I hope to be his best birthday yet) the availability to pre-order his forthcoming novel Amerikan Krazy on Amazon.com! If anyone loves it half as much as I do, it’s guaranteed to be a best seller.
I’ve helped him to edit and shape it for several months now and somehow never tire of reading his characters, his plot, or re-experiencing his never-ending wit or his truckloads of snark. Somehow, between the two of us, I think I’m always getting the better end of the deal in working on his book. Either way I’m proud to call him my friend.
Henry Korn’s novel Amerikan Krazy now available on Amazon.com
ack in the late sixties, my friend Henry James Korn wrote an experimental and formally innovative work of fiction entitled The Pontoon Manifesto.
It’s had various print incarnations, some better than others in terms of relaying the intended meaning of his experiment. Forty-five years on, we are truly proud to present a new and unlimited edition electronic Pontoon powered by a web-based randomizer which reorders the paragraphs at the click of a button. This gives The Pontoon Manifesto new life in a technological form unavailable at the time of its writing.
“Henry James Korn’s Pontoon Manifesto is a pioneering modular fiction.”
Richard Kostelanetz, critic, curator, editor, and visual poet
This late 1960’s literary experiment anticipated major themes, characters, and plot points in Korn’s forthcoming debut novel Amerikan Krazy (Boffo Socko Books, 2015). The Pontoon Manifesto was initially floated in a pair of early 1970’s paperback offshoots of New American Review.
For the Print Purists
In 1975, his experiment was reprinted by the poet Larry Zirlin as a limited edition artist book in the form of a deck of cards to be shuffled and read in any order. This may be one of the best ways to read the manifesto, and limited copies of this original collector’s edition are still available — drop us a note if you are interested in acquiring a numbered/lettered and signed copy. Physical copies should also be available on Amazon.com shortly as well.
We would love to have your reviews and thoughts once you’ve had the chance to check out the new “manifesto.” Feel free to post them on GoodReads.com at your leisure. Additional information about The Pontoon Manifesto including selected exhibitions, selected collections, and its publication history can be found here: The Pontoon Manifesto.
REVIEWS & COMMENTS
‘Thirty-three fictional beginnings to be shuffled and read in any order?’ I did it and I’m hooked.
-Alexandra Garrett, NewLetters, Beyond Baroque Foundation Los Angeles, 1975
Korn’s persona is a latter-day Huck Finn on his raft riding out of yesterday into today, graduating from innocence to the no-sense world of Tanguy, Ernst, Dali and Kafka. This post-McLuhan Shandyesque card-read, play-book is elegant, whimsical, politically satirical and truly surreal.
-Arlene Zekowski, Small Press Review, Dustbooks, Paradise, California, 1975
A fictional house of cards designed to destroy the everlasting sanity of librarians everywhere.
-Bill Katz, “Best Small Press Titles of 1975” Library Journal, New York, 1975
The Pontoon Manifesto can be read as many ways as it can be shuffled, creating a new plot with every reading. In trusting his reader to create the fiction, Korn appears to believe my mind contains as many interesting possibilities as his own.
-Tom Montag, Learning to Read Again: Some Notes on Eight Recent Books, Cat’s Pajama Press, Chicago, 1976
Free from an established view of art and literature, Henry James Korn challenges us to take up the gauntlet and write our own stories.
-Loris Essary, Assembling Assembling, Pratt Graphics Center exhibition catalogue edited by Richard Kostelanetz, Assembling Press, New York, 1978
For too long, scientists focused on what we can see. Now they are at last starting to decode life’s software.
“A soup of chemicals may spontaneously form a reaction network, but what does it take for such a molecular muddle to begin coherently organising information flow and storage? Rather than looking to biology or chemistry, we can perhaps dream that advances in the mathematics of information theory hold the key.”
t’s the beginning of yet another quarter/semester (or ovester, if you prefer) and a new crop of inquiries have come up around selling back used textbooks and purchasing new textbooks for upcoming classes. I’m not talking about the philosophical discussion about choosing your own textbooks that I’ve mentioned before. I’m considering, in the digital era,
What are the best options for purchasing, renting, or utilizing textbook products in what is a relatively quickly shifting market?
The popular press has a variety of evergreen stories that hit the wire at the beginning of each semester that scratch just the surface of the broader textbook issue or focus on one tiny upstart company that promises to drastically disrupt the market (yet somehow never does), but these articles never delve just a bit deeper into the market to give a broader array of ideas and, more importantly, solutions for the students/parents who are spending the bulk of the money to support the inequalities the market has built.
I aim to facilitate some of this digging and revealing based on years of personal book buying experience as well as having specified textbooks as an instructor in the past.
Reading Formats
Most current students won’t have been born late enough that electronic files for books and texts will have been common enough to prefer them over physical texts, but with practice and time, many will prefer electronic texts in the long term, particularly as one can highlight, mark up, and more easily search, store, and even carry electronic texts.
Before taking a look at the pure economics of the market for the various forms of purchase, resale, or even renting, one should first figure out one’s preference for reading format. There are obviously many different means of learning (visual, auditory, experiential, etc.) which some will prefer over others, so try to tailor your “texts” to your preferred learning style as much as possible. For those who prefer auditory learning modes, be sure to check out alternatives like Audible or the wealth of online video/audio materials that have proliferated in the MOOC revolution. For those who are visual learners or who learn best by reading, do you prefer ebook formats over physical books? There are many studies showing the benefit of one over the other, but some of this comes down to personal preference and how comfortable one is with particular formats. Most current students won’t have been born late enough that electronic files for books and texts will have been common enough to prefer them over physical texts, but with practice and time, many will prefer electronic texts in the long term, particularly as one can highlight, mark up, and more easily search, store, and even carry electronic texts. It’s taken me (an avowed paper native) several years, but I now vastly prefer to have books in electronic format for some of the reasons indicated above in addition to the fact that I can carry a library of 2,500+ books with me almost anywhere I go. I also love being able to almost instantly download anything that I don’t currently own but may need/want.
The one caveat I’ll mention, particularly for visual learners (or those with pseudo-photographic or eidetic memory), is that they attempt to keep a two-page reading format on their e-reading devices as their long-term memory for reading will increase with the ability to place the knowledge on the part of the page(s) where they originally encountered it (that is, I remember seeing that particular item on the top left, or middle right portion of a particular page.) Sometimes this isn’t always possible due to an e-reader’s formatting capabilities or the readability of the size of the text (for example, a .pdf file on a Kindle DX would be preferable to the same file on a much smaller smartphone) , but for many it can be quite helpful. Personally, I can remember where particular words and grammatical constructs appeared in my 10th grade Latin text many years later while I would be very unlikely to be able to do this with the presentation of some modern-day e-readers or alternate technologies like rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP).
Purchasing Options
Purchasing to Keep
Personally, as a student and a bibliophile (read: bibliomaniac), I would typically purchase all of the physical texts for all of my classes. I know this isn’t a realizable reality for everyone, so, for the rest, I would recommend purchasing all of the texts (physical or electronic, depending on one’s preference for personal use) in one’s main area of study, which one could then keep for the long term and not sell back. This allows one to build a library that will serve as a long term reference for one’s primary area(s) of study.
Renting vs Short-term Ownership
In general, I’m opposed to renting books or purchasing them for a semester or year and then returning them for a partial refund. It’s rarely a great solution for the end consumer who ends up losing the greater value of the textbook. Even books returned and sold later as used, often go for many multiples of their turn in price the following term, so if it’s a newer or recent edition, it’s probably better to hold on to it for a few months and then sell it for a used price, slightly lower than the college bookstore’s going rate.
Free Texts
For tangential texts in classes I know I don’t want to keep for the long term, I’d usually find online versions or borrow (for free) from the local college or public library (many books are available electronically through the library or are borrow-able through the library reserve room.)
Most public libraries use systems like Overdrive, Axis 360 (Baker & Taylor), Adobe Digital Editions, 3M Cloud Library, etc. to allow students to check out a broad array of fiction and non-fiction for free for loan terms from as short as a week up to a month or more. Additionally well-known websites like the Project Gutenberg and Archive.org have lots of commonly used texts available for free download in a broad variety of formats. This includes a lot of classic fiction, philosophy, and other texts used in the humanities. Essentially most works published in the United States prior to 1923 and many additional texts published after this as well can be found in the public domain. Additional information on what is in the public domain can be found here: Copyright Term and Public Domain in the United States.
Often college students forget that they’re not just stuck with their local institutional library, so I’ll remind everyone to check out their local public library(s) as well as other nearby institutional libraries and inter-library loan options which may give them longer term loan terms.
General Economics in the Textbook Market
One of the most important changes in the textbook market that every buyer should be aware of: last year in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.the US Supreme Court upheld the ability for US-based students to buy copies of textbooks printed in foreign countries (often at huge cut-rate prices) [see also Ars Technica]. This means that searching online bookstores in India, Indonesia, Pakistan, etc. will often find the EXACT same textbooks (usually with slightly different ISBNs, and slightly cheaper paper) for HUGE discounts in the 60-95% range.
Example: I recently bought an international edition of Walter Rudin’s Principles of Mathematical Analysis (Amazon $121) for $5 (and it even happened to ship from within the US for $3). Not only was this 96% off of the cover price, but it was 78% off of Amazon’s rental price! How amazing is it to spend almost as much to purchase a book as it is to ship it to yourself!? I’ll also note here that the first edition of this book appeared in 1964 and this very popular third edition is from 1976, so it isn’t an example of “edition creep”, but it’s still got a tremendous mark up in relation to other common analysis texts which list on Amazon for $35-50.
For some of the most expensive math/science/engineering texts one can buy an edition one or two earlier than the current one. In these cases, the main text changes very little, if any, and the primary difference is usually additional problems in the homework sections (which causes small discrepancies in page number counts). If necessary, the problem sets can be easily obtained via the reserve room in the library or by briefly borrowing/photocopying problems from classmates who have the current edition. The constant “edition-churning” by publishers is mean to help prop up high textbook prices.
Definition: “Edition Churning” or “Edition Creep“: a common practice of textbook publishers of adding scant new material, if any, to textbooks on a yearly or every-other-yearly basis thereby making older editions seem prematurely obsolete and thereby propping up the prices of their textbooks. Professors who blithely utilize the newest edition of a texbook are often unknowingly complicit in propping up prices in these situations.
Book Outlets
Bookstores
One may find some usefulness or convenience in traditional bookstores, particularly Barnes & Noble, the last of the freestanding big box retailers. If you’re a member of their affinity program and get an additional discount for ordering books directly through them, then it may not be a horrible idea to do so. Still, they’re paying for a relatively large overhead and it’s likely that you’ll find cheaper prices elsewhere.
Campus bookstores
These are becoming increasingly lean and many may begin disappearing over the next decade or so, much the way many traditional bookstores have disappeared in the last decade with the increasing competition online. Because many students aren’t the best at price comparison, however, and because of their position in the economic chain, many are managing to hang on quite well. Keep in mind that many campus bookstores have fine print deals in which they’ll match or beat pricing you find online, so be sure to take advantage of this fact, particularly when shipping from many services will make an equivalent online purchase a few dollars more expensive.
Used bookstores
There are fewer and fewer of these around these days and even fewer textbook-specific stores that traditionally sprouted up next to major campuses. This last type may not be a horrible place to shop, but they’re likely to specialize in used texts of only official texts. Otherwise, general used bookstores are more likely to specialize in paperbacks and popular used fiction and have very lean textbook selection, if any.
Online Retailers
Naturally when shopping for textbooks there are a veritable wealth of websites to shop around online including: Amazon, Alibris, Barnes & Noble, AbeBooks, Google Play, Half/EBay. Chegg, Valore, CampusBookRentals, TextBooks.com, and ECampus. But in the Web2.0 world, we can now uses websites with even larger volumes of data and meta-data as a clearing-house for our shopping. So instead of shopping and doing price comparison at the dozens of competing sites, why not use a meta-site to do the comparison for us algorithmically and much more quickly.
Meta-Retailers
There are a variety of meta-retailer shopping methods including several browser plugins and comparison sites (Chrome, Firefox, InvisibleHand, PriceBlink, PriceGong, etc.) that one can install to provide pricing comparisons, so that, for example, while shopping on Amazon, one will see lower priced offerings from their competitors. However, possibly the best website I’ve come across for cross-site book comparisons is GetTextbooks.com. One can easily search for textbooks (by author, title, ISBN, etc.) and get back a list of retailers with copies that is sortable by price (including shipping) as well as by new/used and even by rental availability. They even highlight one entry algorithmicly to indicate their recommended “best value”.
Similar to GetTextbooks is the webservice SlugBooks, though it doesn’t appear to search as many sites or present as much data.
When searching for potential textbooks, don’t forget that one can “showroom” the book in one’s local bookstore or even at one’s local library(s). This is particularly useful if one is debating whether or not to take a particular class, or if one is kicking tires to see if it’s really the best book for them, or if they should be looking at other textbooks.
From an economic standpoint, keep in mind there is usually more availability and selection on editions bought a month or so before the start of classes, as often-used texts are used by thousands of students over the world, thus creating a spot market for used texts at semester and quarter starts. Professors often list their textbooks when class listings for future semesters are released, so students surfing for the best deals for used textbooks can very often find them in mid-semester (or mid-quarter) well before the purchasing rush begins for any/most titles.
Black Market
And finally, there is also the black market (also known as outright theft), which is usually spoken of in back-channels either online or in person. Most mainstream articles which reference this portion of the market usually refer tangentially to a grey market in which one student passes along a .pdf or other pirated file to fellow students rather than individual students being enterprising enough to go out hunting for their own files.
Most will know of or have heard about websites like PirateBay, but there are a variety of lesser-known torrent sites which are typically hosted in foreign countries which extend beyond the reach of the United States Copyright law enforcement. Increasingly, mega-pirate websites in the vein of the now-defunct Library.nu (or previously Gigapedia) or the slowly dying empire of Library Genesis are hiding all over the web and become quick and easy clearing houses for pirated copies of ebooks, typically in .pdf or .djvu formats, though many are in .epub, .mobi, .azw, or alternate e-book formats. The typical set up for these sites is one or more illegal file repositories for allowing downloads with one (or more) primary hubs that don’t necessarily store the pirated materials, but instead serve as a searchable hub which points to the files.
Creative advanced searches for book authors, titles, ISBNs along with the words .pdf, .djvu, torrent, etc. can often reveal portions of this dark web. Naturally, caveat emptor applies heavily to these types of sites as often files can be corrupted or contain viruses to unwary or unwitting thieves. Many of these sites may attempt to extract a small token monthly fee as a subscription or will rely heavily on serving banner advertising to help to offset large web hosting and traffic fees associated with their maintenance, though it is posited that many of them make in the millions of dollars in profit annually due to advertising arrangements, though this is incredibly hard to validate given the nature of these types of markets and how they operate.
Rather than stoop as low as finding textbooks on the black market this way, students should place pressure on their professors, the faculty of their departments, and their colleges or universities to help assist in smoothing out some of the pricing inequities in the system (see below). In the long run, this will not only tend to help them, but many future generations of students who will be left adrift in the market otherwise.
Long Term Solution(s) to Improving the Textbook Market
The biggest primary issue facing the overpriced textbook market is that the end consumers of the textbooks aren’t really firmly in charge of the decision of which textbook to purchase. This is why I advocate that students research and decide by themselves which textbook they’re going to use and whether or not they really need to make that purchase. Instead, individual professors or the departments for which they work are dictating the textbooks that will be purchased. The game theory dynamics behind this small decision are the massive fulcrum which allows the publishing industry to dictate their own terms. Students (and parents) should, in a sense, unionize and make their voices heard not only to the professors, but to the departments and even the colleges/universities which they’re attending. If universities took a strong stance on how the markets worked, either for or against them and their students, they could create strong market-moving forces to drastically decrease the cost of textbooks.
The other larger issue is that market forces aren’t allowed to play out naturally in the college textbook market. Publishers lean on professors and departments to “adopt” overpriced textbooks. These departments in turn “require” these texts and students aren’t questioning enough to use other texts for fear of not succeeding in courses. If the system were questioned, they’d realize that instead of their $200-300 textbook, they could easily purchase alternate, equivalent, and often even better textbooks for $20-50. To put things into perspective, the time, effort, energy, and production cost for the typical book isn’t drastically different than the average textbook, yet we’re not paying $250 for a copy of the average new hardcover on the best seller list. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that universities, departments, and professors are colluding with publishers, but they’re certainly not helping to make the system better.
I’ve always taken the view that the ‘required’ textbook was really just a ‘suggestion’. (Have you ever known a professor to fail a student for not purchasing the ‘required’ textbook?!)
In past generations, one of the first jobs of a student was to select their own textbook. Reverting back to this paradigm may help to drastically change the economics of the situation. For the interested students, I’ve written a bit about the philosophy and mechanics here: On Choosing Your Own Textbooks.
Basic economics 101 theory of supply and demand would typically indicate to us that basic textbooks for subjects like calculus, intro physics, or chemistry that are used by very large numbers of students should be not only numerous, but also very cheap, while more specialized books like Lie Groups and Lie Algebras or Electromagnetic Theory should be less numerous and also more expensive. Unfortunately and remarkably, the most popular calculus textbooks are 2-5 times more expensive than their advanced abstract mathematical brethren and similarly for introductory physics texts versus EM theory books.
To drastically cut down on these market inequities, when possible, Colleges and Universities should:
Heavily discourage “edition creep” or “edition churning” when there really aren’t major changes to textbooks. In an online and connected society, it’s easy enough to add supplemental errata or small amounts of supplemental material by means of the web.
Quit making institution-specific readers and sub-editions of books for a specific department
If they’re going to make departmental level textbook choices, they should shoulder the burden of purchasing all the textbooks in quantity (and taking quantity discounts). I’ll note here, that students shouldn’t encourage institutions to bundle the price of textbooks into their tuition as then there is a “dark curtain,” which allows institutions to take the drastic mark-ups for themselves instead of allowing the publishers to take it or passing it along to their students. Cross-reference Benjamin Ginsberg’s article Administrators Ate My Tuition or his much longer text The Fall of the Faculty (Oxford University Press, 2013).
Discourage the use of unpopularly used textbooks written by their own faculty. Perhaps a market share of 5-10% or more should be required for a common textbook to be usable by a department, and, until that point, the professor should compete aggressively to build market share? This may help encourage professors to write new original texts instead of producing yet-another-introductory-calculus-textbook that no one needs.
Discourage packaged electronic supplemental materials, which
are rarely used by students,
could be supplied online for free as a supplement,
and often double or triple the price of a textbook package.
Strongly encourage professors to supply larger lists of relatively equivalent books and encourage their students to make their purchase choices individually.
Consider barring textbook sales on campus and relying on the larger competitive market to supply textbooks to students.
Calibre: E-book and Document Management Made Simple
As an added bonus, for those with rather large (or rapidly growing) e-book collections, I highly recommend downloading and using the free Calibre Library software. For my 2000+ e-books and documents, this is an indispensable program that is to books as iTunes is to music. I also use it to download dozens of magazines and newspapers on a daily basis for reading on my Kindle. I love that it’s under constant development with weekly updates for improved functionality. It works on all major OSes and is compatible with almost every e-reader on the planet. Additionally, plug-ins and a myriad of settings allow for additional extensibility for integration with other e-book software and web services (for example: integration with GoodReads or the ability to add additional data and meta-data to one’s books.)
Be sure to read through the commentary on some of these posts for some additional great information.
What other textbook purchasing services and advice can you offer the market?
I invite everyone to include their comments and advice below as I’m sure I haven’t covered the topic completely or there are bound to be new players in the space increasing competition as time goes by.
There are thousands of websites out there with details and instructions on how to properly season your cast iron cooking implements. Sadly, very few, if any, actually discuss the science behind what is going on or why one method is better than another. All of them typically reference dozens of oils and fats that should or shouldn’t be used with little or no justification for their choices other than the culinary equivalent of old wives tales.
Flaxseed Oil for Seasoning Cast Iron
About two seasonings ago, I had come across an interesting concept surrounding flaxseed oil and have always meant to try it, but wanted to do some tests and comparisons of my own. After some research, I’ve found Sheryl Canter’s original article which now seems to be referenced by most serious food blogs and sites. I’ll try some tests with in the coming weeks and hopefully get around to reporting some of the results. Time to get the trusty microscope out for some photomicrography!
In the meanwhile, here are some links to what appear to be the forefront of material out there on the subject.
The inimitable McGee has relatively little to say on the subject, so I’ll quote it briefly below:
IRON AND STEEL
Iron was a relatively late discovery because it exists in the earth’s crust primarily in the form of oxides, and had to be encountered in it’s pure form by accident, perhaps when a fire was built on an outcropping of ore. Iron artifacts have been found that date from 3000 BCE, though the Iron Age, when the metal came into regular use without replacing copper and bronze (a copper-tin alloy) in preeminence, is said to begin around 1200 BCE. Cast iron is alloyed with about 3% carbon to harden the metal, and also contains some silicon; carbon steel contains less carbon, and is heat-treated to obtain a less brittle, tougher alloy that can be formed into thinner pans. The chief attractions of cast iron and carbon steel in kitchen work are their cheapness and safety. Excess iron is readily eliminated from the body, and most people can actually benefit from additional dietary iron. Their greatest disadvantage is a tendency to corrode, though this can be avoided by regular seasoning (below) and gentle cleaning. Like aluminum, iron and carbon steel can discolor foods. And iron turns out to be a poorer conductor of heat than copper or aluminum. But exactly for this reason, and because it’s denser than aluminum, a cast iron pan will absorb more heat and hold it longer than a similar aluminum pan. Thick cast iron pans provide steady, even heat.
“Seasoning” Cast Iron and Carbon Steel Cooks who appreciate cast iron and carbon steel pans improve their easily corroded surface by building up an artificial protective layer. They “season” them by coating them with cooking oil and heating them for several hours. The oil penetrates into the pores and fissures of the metal, sealing it from the attack of air and water. And the combination of heat, metal, and air oxidizes the fatty acid chains and enourages them to bond to each other (“polymerize”) to form a dense, hard, dry layer (just as linseed and other “drying oils” do on wood and on painintgs). Highly unsaturated oils — soy oil, corn oil — are expecially prone to oxidation and polymerizing. To avoid removing the protective oil layer, cooks carefully clean seasoned cast iron pans with mild soaps and dissolving abrassive like salt, rather than with detergents and scouring pads.
It’s almost immediately apparent that Canter was inspired to use flaxseed oil by the standard go-to reference which mentions “linseed and other ‘drying oils'”. Since it’s somewhat illustrative of cast iron pans in general, though it doesn’t reference seasoning, I’ll also direct the reader to McGee’s article What’s Hot, What’s Not, in Pots and Pans (New York Times, October 7, 2008) as well as Dave Arnold’s article Heavy Metal: the Science of Cast Iron Cooking.
I’ll note that the Culinary Institute of America’s The Professional Chef (Wiley, 7th edition, 2001) only mentions cast iron in passing on page 91 and doesn’t even use the word seasoning. (There is a more recent 9th edition, which I don’t own, but I doubt it has additional information given the scant nature found in the 7th edition.) Similarly “Iron Chef” Alton Brown’s I’m Just Here for the Food (Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2011) has some generally fine directions for the beginning chef interested in science, but it doesn’t go past either McGee or the bulk of the online blogs with the common wisdom for cast iron.
A well-seasoned (manteca) cast iron pan cooking hashbrowns
In the coming research, I’ll delve into some of the journal literature to see what else I come up with, though I expect that it will be scant at best and not much more than the often cited July 1986 study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association which discusses iron leaching out of pans into food substances.
Anyone with serious thoughts and ideas in this area is encouraged to share them in the comments.
