The Death of the Text Book

Apple predicts in its announcement of iBook Author that the traditional printed textbook will soon be replaced by the interactive ebook or ibook, because

• textbooks are static
• textbooks are heavy
• textbooks are expensive,

while

• ibooks are dynamic
• ibooks have no weight
• ibooks are cheap.

The argument is pretty convincing and the change is already taking place. In fact, even before the ibook students felt the change was coming and refused to buy all the expensive heavy text books listed in the course.

The traditional textbook served as the Bible presenting the accepted knowledge or scientific consensus of its time. The textbook was often written by authors without first hand knowledge as records of state of the art expressed in scientific journals by prime scientists, or in previous textbooks.

With Kuhn's terminology, "normal science" is what is written in the textbook, which thus serves as the Bible or canon.

The following questions present themselves:

• What will be the effect of a Death of the Textbook?
• Will "normal science" survive?
• Is there a need of "normal science"?
• What is the science of the ibook?

Lets us consider one specific example of major importance to all of us, climate science:

In climate science, the scientific consensus or "normal science" has been the science defined by IPCC in its textbooks, and this science is now falling apart as incorrect science identified by the scientific blogosphere, which is where the climate science is now being formed and which can be viewed as the ibook.

Another example is Calculus: No other area of science can count so many textbooks, all very similar and with very little change over 100 years. These textbooks have served to preserve mathematics education in a form untouched by the invention of the computer. But the ibook of Calculus is different and it is coming...my version is Mathematical Simulation Technology.

The shift from textbook to ibook thus can be expected to bring major shifts in both science and education. Interesting times are to come...