Peterkin

May I offer two book recommendations? https://www.goodreads.com/book/photo/55981.Consilience https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1185545.The_Earth_Dwellers?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=6ZbHZFkmoq&rank=2 A fascinating and engaging look into the world of ants and the scientists who study them.

ISBN's have only been in use since the 1970's - and not uniformly until the '80's - so the comparisons from then to now could be made across publishers and internationally from about 1980 to today. Before that, they had different kinds of identification in each country, and sometimes each publishing house. Even if you restricted the search to the post ISBN period, you'd still have no way to discover which numbers belong to textbooks. Not very useful. Even if you do have the ISBN, btw, there is no guarantee that any venue will supply all of the information. Amazon is pretty good on shipping dimensions - as are many independent vendors - but hardly anyone gives weights. They'll generally tell you the number of pages, but not the paper stock used, which may be anything from 22 to 84 lb/ream. They'll tell you hard or soft cover, but not the thickness of the boards. I'm not going to attempt the empirical method in my own stacks, since I have only a few recent medical (either humungous or pocket-sized), Science and Environment studies and a handful of high-school math and language texts. Nowhere near a sample size going out to the cold for.

even so ... But you have to admit, the other would have been impressive.

Why would the number of pages be significant?

It exists, but is so scattered and hard to find, it wouldn't be worth anyone's while to pursue. Unless you were doing a thesis on the subject as a revenge on boring professors... One way to proceed would be to follow the history of a single publisher. Which, of course, they're not. Pearson, for example, has had two dozen incarnations, mergers and acquisitions since the mid 19th century, and has published text and reference books under as many concurrent imprints. It would be a Cinderellian task to sort through them all. Wiley might be easier, though it, too, has a number of imprints, including a couple in Europe, where the formatting standards may be different. Soooo - anecdotal we are and anecdotal we remain, yes? (*sigh* How i miss book sales!)

Maybe you don't need art; most of us do. Which message is ever clear?

Wow! Those are some heavy books! I've never come across anything like them. Bang goes one anecdotal observation.

I know something about books. I don't know anything about potato chips or dirt bikes. If the topic has changed, I'm no longer qualified to comment.

I'm not making a distinction at all: the distinction already exists. If all textbooks were worthy of becoming reference books, 'best' wouldn't mean anything. A very few students of today will keep a very few of their textbooks for future reference. Most will sell, or try to sell, most or all of their textbooks. Many, including those who were unsuccessful at selling the unwanted textbooks, will try to donate them to thrift shops and library sales, who will almost unanimously refuse them. The resale value of university textbooks doesn't begin to justify the time, effort and shipping cost, so no second-hand booksellers buy them anymore. And the damn things all have plastic-coated paper, so they're toxic to burn and not everywhere eligible for recycling. But they're all big, even the mediocre and crappy ones.

No, I was answering a post. The OP question was about textbooks, and so that's what I've been basing all my answers on. There is a difference: I have not been a student for a very long time, so I have no use for textbooks, but I keep small library of reference books. Many people do. We generally don't carry them around. Students, on the other hand, are obliged to ferry their textbooks between home and school on a regular schedule.

Textbooks, not reference books. And students at all levels would have to.

You can get the Gottschalk, 2nd edition (?2012?) for $14 in used hardcover (not tiny, at 359 pages and over half a kilo, but a reasonable size. The cheapest one is probably highlighted in green and orange marker; I'd get a $25 or $35 copy.) Pretty good, compared to a new paperback at $135. Oddly, the kindle edition isn't much cheaper. So it's not the luxury furbishings that determine this price! The Campbell hardcover (2013 - which is pushing the sell-by date), a whopping 1488 pages and 3.3k, sells for not very much more used $50 +/-), but the 11th edition (2016) is $200, without the workbook and lab notes. I'm guessing it includes a lot more than bacterial metabolism. If the class is specialized, students would certainly be better off with the Gottschalk, even if they have to take extra class notes or do supplementary research to fill in the time interval. The strain on their vertebral discs alone would be worth it! That's my main concern with the size of textbooks: it cannot be good for young people with not-quite-finished skeletal structure, to carry that much weight around, day after day, for three to five years. The huge debt they incur to get an education is a secondary concern.

I see nothing unethical about it. I also don't see any limits on the uses of any idea in the public domain. GODS know, the concept of deity, sanctity and the individual identities of each specific deity have been put in the service of less savoury projects!

I didn't realize that. I thought the size, weight, richness, etc. of the textbooks was part of an educational experience. I didn't mention instruction external to the textbook until after you suggested that the comprehensive content of these new, giant textbooks renders live instruction superfluous. Only in that context would the cost ratio of book to instruction be relevant: i.e. If this is indeed the case, it justifies the large format, thick, lavishly illustrated, entertaining and very attractive textbooks. Otherwise, their extravagant production values seem to me quite wasteful. Business college was just one example: it's the same in humanities and science courses. If I recall correctly, the most expensive of all were Physics books. The major difference, tmm, is that the science ones contain more factual, usable information. None of my comments were intended as more than personal observations and opinion.

That seemed to me at least an oblique comment on value: if they buy the expensive (which I had cited earlier) textbook, they should not need the even more expensive instruction. I do apologize, however, for quoting the Harvard tuition before; apparently far more affordable business programs are available: If it is indeed the case that an MBA degree can be had for the cost of the textbooks alone, the price - and immense size - of those books is fully justified. However, if the student is required to attend 4 years of classes so that all those intricate matters of global marketing and trade regulation can be explained to them by an instructor, all the textbooks really need to contain would be the shipping rates and conversion tables; the instructor could supply the margin notes and fun facts. Just one more comment on the glossy paper. It isn't just vastly more pricey, it's also hard on the eyes and even harder on the landfills. Go E-book, I say: cheaper, cleaner, safer, more convenient.

AH! So then, they only need to spend the $1,000 or so per year for books, and can save the $75,000 or so for tuition! That makes sense.

Is it vitally important? If so, insert "in", "in the" "in early" or "come" between 'quickly' and 'spring'. Otherwise, interpret as you see fit. In Doctor Who, it can. Series 2, Episode 1, New Earth. But, as you are more literally oriented: NO

Really? What multi-chapter breakthroughs have taken place in thinking about business?

That's wonderful, as long as the styles that prefer lavish illustration and marginalia on fat glossy paper all have affluent parents who can fork out $50-100 per, and drive them to school. These books are lovely to look at, but they'd be difficult for a poor family to buy and the student to carry back and forth to school on foot and the bus. Once you get to college or university, the prices and heft become truly crippling. https://www.wiley.com/en-ca/General+%26+Introductory+Chemical+Engineering-c-CG00

Fine. I'm interested in art; you're interested in formulating hypotheses. No two exactly alike.

I will be interested to see your results!

No, that wasn't the reason. They are perfect in all respects: this 'imperfection' is solely in the eye of the beholder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdbPWoMsdIs (and I wish you'd let up on that painting school joke)

LOL. I linked to hundreds of them - both kinds. They're not exactly hard to find! Michelangelo could paint anything he wanted to and chose not to put wings on his angels. By then, the addition of wings had become an artistic convention and it was unusual not to put them in. It had not always been so. The Development of Winged Angels in Early Christian Art by Therese Martin

Which time periods for comparison?

In 1920, you could put most college textbooks in a jacket pocket. No, but they need more pages. And they're big pictures, not little line diagrams. You can measure the recent ones, but I doubt you have any from the 1920's through '50's. It's in the late 50's that they really started to grow glossy and flashy and pricey. I can probably still find a few, though we've discarded most of them.