Re: Textbook prescribers of the world arise!

[Steve Luzader <sluzader@fre.fsu.umd.edu>]

Leigh Palmer wrote:
> It has always astonished me that physics textbooks are so poorly
> written that they must be constantly revised. ...

   I raised this issue with a publisher's rep many years ago, and I was
told that the books usually aren't revised because they need to be
rewritten.  The real reason is that the buying public wants the books
to look 'new and fresh'.  For example, the reason I questioned the rep
was that a new edition was coming out for a calculus-level intro text
that had only been on the market for two or three years.  The new
edition was "needed" in order to make the change from monochrome
illustrations to 4-color illustrations.  (When the new edition came
out, it had mistakes that weren't present in the old edition...)

Steve Luzader
Frostburg State University
sluzader@fre.fsu.umd.edu