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Re: Get Your Oudin Coil Plans Here
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 11:13:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Wes A Brzozowski <wesb-at-blue.spectra-dot-net>
To: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Subject: Re: Get Your Oudin Coil Plans Here
On Tue, 7 Oct 1997, Tesla List wrote:
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 18:40:04 -0400
> From: Thomas McGahee <tom_mcgahee-at-sigmais-dot-com>
> To: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> Subject: Re: Get Your Oudin Coil Plans Here
>
> It was one of my prize possessions. I wish there were more books like
> that written. Unfortunately I lost my copy some years ago when two of
> my students borrowed it and never returned it. I have looked in vain
> for a replacement copy. It is out of print and the company that owns
> the copyright is not interested in reprinting the thing. It is your
> usual case of assinine stupidity on the part of the publisher. If
> they DID reprint it, *I* for one would buy a copy. I understand that
> they won't agree to let anyone else reprint it either. Sheer
> stupidity!!! So instead of them getting money for their book, you get
> people like me giving away one of the chapters for free. Normally I
> balk at doing such things, but knowledge shouldn't be collecting dust
> on a shelf.
It is intensely frustrating when an interesting book is out of print and
has no plans for reissue. One good source of the contents of this book
is still readily available, though -- the original issues of Scientific
American, themselves! SA is issued yearly on microfilm cartridges, and
many libraries subscribe to them and have them avaialable. My employer's
technical library has decades worth of these. Another source of old
issues is antique shops and antiquarian book stores. At an old antique
barn out in the "back woods", I got 12 years' worth of Scientific
Americans, in library bindings, 6 months per volume, for a mere 10
dollars. This included all the Amateur Scientist articles reprinted in
his book, as well as a wealth of other articles that never made it in
there. Many of the old AS articles covered several topics, because each
was too short in itself to fill out a full article. None of those shorter
items made it into the book, because they were too short also to fill out
a chapter, but they're pure gold, anyway. There are other articles that
apparently had to be left out to keep the book down to a manageable size,
and many other wonderful ones that appeared after the book was published.
As an aside, somewhere on the web, I found and printed out an index of
the old Amateur Scientist articles from SA. It's far from thorough, but
it does at least give pointers to the major topics covered by the
articles. I don't have the URL or the printout handy at the moment, but
a web search ought to unearth it if it's still out there.
Yes, it was a wonderful book, and it's sad that it's no longer available,
but that just makes a wonderful motivation to hit the microfilm archives,
down at the library, and dig through them for all the other glistening
treasures that never made it into the book. They're there, they're
abundant, and they're absolutely fascinating!!!
Wes B.
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