Get Started Reading Books and Articles on the Cheap

…. Or, visit your local University’s library for an even grander selection. Buy very, very cheap books. Ok, so this one’s almost free. There are hundreds of books selling at less than 1 cent on Amazon. They’re not all worth a penny, but there are some real jewels among the noise, which you can get for only the price of shipping. To find them, try browsing by subject, and then selecting “Sort by Price: Low to High.” Reading With Questionable Scruple…

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Get Started Learning General Relativity Online

…s and philosophy of general relativity, all of which is available for free online. If you know of any online resources that are not on this list, suggest them in the comments and I will add them to the list! Contents Non-mathematical introductions to general relativity Mathematical introductions to general relativity Philosophy of general relativity Other general relativity references. Non-mathematical introductions to general relativity Einstein…

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Special: What’s With the Economy.

…o make and sell burgers in. The wealthy Scrooge McDuck had enough money to buy buildings. So they struck the following deal. McDuck gave BurgerBee the money to buy a building for their burger joint (say, 100,000 dollars). In return, BurgerBee gave McDuck a little certificate, which says that BurgerBee will pay McDuck MUCH MORE than the original amount (say, 200,000 dollars). But the payments are made in small amounts, every month, over the course…

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Improving the Peer Review Process

…hor and reviewer, when everyone has access to the interwebs? An anonymized online interface would be quicker, easier, and more useful. In particular, it would allow for quick clarificatory questions, and even back-and-forth discussions of important results between author and reviewer, before a finalized report is submitted to the editor. Incentives for high-quality reviews. Most journals don’t offer you an incentive to do a good job in a timely ma…

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New Directions in Foundations of Physics 2008

…osophers of physics. Paul Teller skillfully navigated us to the conference site, all the while deftly deflecting the good-natured heckling of John Norton and Richard Healey. We arrived, tanked up on coffee and bagels, and everything began. When you first encounter quantum mechanics, you’re often inclined to ask, “Yes yes, but what’s really going on?” The non-intuitiveness of the quantum world often leads one to feel that there might be more a intu…

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