I noticed you included planetmath in your list of encyclopedias. They used to be an excellent source for definitions and theorems in pure math. But for the past 3 years, their search has been broken and their rendering has been slow (each page view lands on a yucky page of unrendered typesetting syntax, which is replaced by a blank page for more than a few seconds before some 'jsmath' plugin does something?). They hemorrhaged most of their users during that period. I found some notes from their board meetings, and they've know about these issues, they discuss them continually, but they've done nothing for 3 years. It's really sad, because it could have been an alternative to wikipedia for pure mathematicians.
Another hidden gem for academic mathematics is york university's ask a topologist: http://at.yorku.ca/cgi-bin/bbqa . Regulars on this forum routinely answer and discuss graduate and research level questions (in algebra and geometry too, not just topology).
sure - I want to teach myself market analysis, so I'm scraping craigslist for data and fiddling with it. I did some curve fitting so I thought it might be cool to calculate velocity to, you know, figure out what time the velocity of people selling macbooks maxes out by city...
Anyone know of a resource like this where you can take problem sets and/or tests? For the way I learn, it just doesn't stick unless I can do problems and correct my mistakes.
Just get a book, like Concrete Mathematics, and do their problems. Post your solutions in a blog, if you want people to criticise them. You can ask on HN, if nobody reads your blog otherwise.
I kid you not, just this morning I was thinking "I want to brush up on my calculus", then I go for my morning dose of HN and see this. I like reading prescient web sites.
If you go looking it isn't too difficult to find material like this. Many of the posters hear have jumped in with their favorite resources. But, where do you all go when you want to ask potentially dumb questions as you would an instructor in class or of classmates? Khan Academy has a nice Q/A section for each video, but the best I've seen is PhysicsForums. Anything better?
Hope this is how the future of education looks like. Curses like these are too valuable to be locked in the ivory towers of ivy league schools. Kudos to MIT for releasing it and hope many other premier schools follow this lead.
Do you think releasing stuff like this might be bad for the university since the students have the possibility to learn without actually enrolling, thus depriving the university of some potentially good students?
Or is the effect opposite - good word, good press, good marketing.
Or, maybe I am completely of track and one has nothing to do with the other?
Don't think it matters. The information has never really been locked away, and the value added by the university environment (personal contact with top lecturers, working closely with like minded students, formal qualification, the chance to meet all sorts of cool people) is still enough to draw students.
It's a dry old world if you only focus on access to the material.
Right now in the USA I have to imagine there is actually a glut of students. While many of them really do want to learn, I would argue a great majority are enrolled in college because "that's what they're supposed to do." I don't think an institution like MIT is at any risk of running out of potential students any time soon.
Well, most (all?) public universities let you check out books from their libraries without being enrolled. And many professors will let you sit in on lectures if you're polite and not a disturbance. So in that sense it's been possible to 'mooch free learning' off of universities for some time.
But this takes away the barrier of having to actually visit a campus. I think of it as 'freemium' marketing, but for academia.
> So in that sense it's been possible to 'mooch free learning' off of universities for some time.
They are more stingy with grading your exercise questions, because that takes time. But if you are genuinely interested, you can probably find someone to grade your stuff; or if you are advanced enough, just try to write a paper. Professors will probably help you, even if you are not in a university. (Just offer co-authorship, if necessary.)
I seriously doubt it will hurt universities. The fact is, to accomplish anything mainstream, you are still 'required' to have a degree. You can certainly accomplish a lot without it, but the barrier to entry is increased significantly without one.
There are of course exceptions, i.e, most technology jobs and on the opposite side; medicine.
The university needs to have enough demand to keep their price high -- and MIT is NOT losing applicants because they can listen to Gilbert Strang for free. Or even if MIT is losing applicants, it probably doesn't impact the number they admit each year.
On the other hand senior professors (not universities, at least to the same degree) trade in fame, not enrollment; Gilbert Strang's career has almost surely only benefited by the fact that we all know his name. MIT probably benefits as well.
However, crappy on-line universities (National, etc) might really be taking a hit from these things -- though, again, one pays for certification not (just) learning.
It's probably more that more knowledge, education and information is good for everyone, especially universities. It's not like you can go around talking about your MIT degree because you took a calc course online, but you are more likely to support higher education, research and its corresponding political necessities if you've got some education. You're also more likely to be productive and consequently more wealthy, and a bigger tax payer as a result.
