This is just me ranting...

I've been reviewing a few heavy science textbooks recently, and have started to get extremely annoyed by having to constantly "look back to figure X to understand concept Y" literally 15 times in every chapter (at 30 chapters a book, it adds up). I'm getting seriously peeved. I propose an iphone app that works with the publishers to display figures in a textbook. So, the next time I see "refer back to figure 5" I can simply click the figure on the app and put the phone next to my reading text so I can actually visualize what's going on.

Again, this is just a rant so deletion may be imminent.
-- goodmars, Mar 16 2009

This could help Book_20photocopier
[knowtion, Mar 16 2009]

I've been in your shoes. Here's a possible solution. On your computer, make a folder for every chapter. Take a snapshot (using your iphone if you wish) of all of the figures and equations. Put all of chapter 1 figures into the chapter 1 folder. Name the jpg's appropriately (fig1, fig2, eq.1, eq.2). Now you don't have to flip back to the previous page. I'm not sure if this works on an iphone alone without a computer, as I don't use an iphone. As an alternative, make a book photocopier as descibed in the link I added.
-- knowtion, Mar 16 2009


hey [knowtion]! this is exactly what I propose! except instead of me taking pictures, I would easily be willing to pay the publishers a little money to have all these images preloaded on some server for me to access from my iphone.

the life of an academic. . . is awesome!!!!!
-- goodmars, Mar 16 2009


I say - just put everything on Wikipedia. Problem solved. Who needs copyrights anyways?
-- imho, Mar 16 2009


//just put everything on Wikipedia//
somewhere in the netiverse there's some guy looking over usage stats thinking "what the hell, that dude should just buy a book" (referring to my almost daily reference to some basic science pages)
-- FlyingToaster, Mar 16 2009


This gives me an idea!
-- eight_nine_tortoise, Mar 16 2009


don't big texts come with CDRoms?
-- bungston, Mar 16 2009


To make the solution even more convenient, accompany each bit of text which says "refer back to figure 5" with either a bar code or qr code.

Then, install on your cell phone a bit of software that takes a picture of the code, then shows the appropriate diagram.
-- goldbb, Mar 16 2009



random, halfbakery