Wikipedia
Dr. Jay Maron
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free online science textbook project

It's not the data. It's how you use it

Wikipedia has 77,000 active contributors, 4,000,000 articles in English, 470 million unique visitors monthly, and has articles in 285 languages.

Common objections to Wikipedia       Answer

The articles have errors             Don't be lazy. There is an army of heroes
                                     improving Wikipedia.
                                     Also, Wikipedia has a different definition
                                     of "error" than you do.

The articles suck                    The articles on physics and mathematics are
                                     awesome. Studying them will improve your
                                     article-writing skills.
                                     You also no longer need a library of textbooks
                                     if you have Wikipedia.
                                     Wikipedia even has textbooks.

Read papers, not Wikipedia           Einstein's 1905 papers can be thought of as
                                     an early Wikipedia article.
                                     They rounded up the lore of the era and condensed
                                     it into a tidy elegant form.
                                     Wikipedia helps you identify which papers to read.
                                     Most journals charge ~ $30/paper.

Teachers forbid students from        These teachers are unimaginative. They should
using Wikipedia on problem sets.     find ways to harness the power of Wikipedia


I object because...                  Abandon the "objection" frame of mind.
                                     Think instead of what you can to to improve
                                     Wikipedia.

Libraries destroyed
  -206  Epang Palace
     ?  Library of Alexandria
   364  Library of Antioch
   392  Library of Serapeum, Alexandria
   651  Library of Ctesiphon
   976  Library of al-Hakam II
  1029  Library of Rayy
  1151  Library of Ghazna
  1154  Library of Nishapur
  1193  Library of Nalanda
  1204  Imperial Library of Constantinople
  1258  House of Wisdom
  1526  Bibliotheca Corviniana
  1562  Maya codices of the Yucatan
Thanks to Wikipedia we no longer have to worry about this.
Youtube

The most powerful research tools that exist are Wikipedia and Youtube. Bruce Lee had a library of thousands of books. Thanks to youtube, every fight scene and training scene from every kung fu movie is now instantly accessible. Imagine what Bruce could have done if he had had Wikipedia and Youtube.


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