MetaFilter posts tagged with encyclopedia

"The Categorical Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts and Industries"

Iridic — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:13:48 -0800

The University of Michigan's collaborative translation of Diderot and d'Alembert's Encylopédie has completed some 650 selections from the Enlightenment keystone, including articles on California, vanilla, werewolves, the English language, beauty, and the complete structure of human knowledge. The project has an open call for translators to help with the 74,000 remaining articles.

"What we are seeing in this project is that all of Europe was a camp."

kirkaracha — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:07:59 -0800

"What we are seeing in this project is that all of Europe was a camp." The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum just released the first volume of a projected seven-volume Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933-1945. "They assumed the finished work would be massive, featuring a staggering 5,000 to 7,000 camps and ghettos. They underestimated by 15,000." Sample articles: Buchenwald/Halle, Early Camp/Hainewalde, and Early Camp/Hainichen.

The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences

parudox — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:37:33 -0800

Ever wondered what comes next, and why? The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences has the answers. (Previously.)

Expand Your Plant Knowledge

netbros — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:38:09 -0800

Whether you're a casual cultivator or gardening guru, PlantCare.com has a wealth of information about the care and feeding of indoor and outdoor plants. You can search the extensive plant database to find information on thousands of house plants, participate in and discuss your favorite gardening topics in the plant forum, and expand your plant knowledge with hundreds of gardening tips and guides.

Homework Helper

netbros — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 21:39:07 -0800

World of Science contains budding encyclopedias of astronomy, scientific biography, chemistry, and physics. This resource has been assembled over more than a decade by internet encyclopedist Eric Weisstein with assistance from the internet community. MeFi visited Weisstein's Mathworld a couple years ago.

The Visual Telling of Stories

carsonb — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:53:36 -0800

The Visual Telling of Stories
A lyrical encyclopedia of visual propositions;
a visually orientated taxonomy of the ways in which pictures are used to tell stories. And we, spectators always, everywhere Looking at, never out of, everything ! It fills us. We arrange it. It decays. We rearrange it, and decay ourselves. Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, the eighth elegy, 1922

Like many posts, this one starts with a Wikipedia link for general background.

grouse — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 06:35:09 -0800

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that ~~anyone~~trusted users can edit. If the MediaWiki FlaggedRevisions extension is enabled, the general public will see changes to articles only after approval by a trusted editor. Wikipedians conducted a poll on whether Wikipedia should enable the feature for a limited trial. Almost 60 percent of voting editors answered in the affirmative. Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales's subsequent request to enable the feature anyway has been opposed by some, claiming that the margin of votes does not meet Wikipedia's consensus standard. While it might help avoid embarrassing incidents of vandalism, the proposed trial could lead to a big change in the Wikipedia way.

It's more free maths!

Iosephus — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:00:59 -0800

Online Encyclopedia of Mathematics Edited by Michiel Hazewinkel (CWI, Amsterdam), and originaly published in dead tree form in 2002, now free to browse and poke into. Seems to have been made available online by Springer-Verlag for 2 years or so, and somehow I missed it all this time until I stumbled on it during a somewhat obscure googling for a calculus question over AskMe. It seems to lack a search functionality, which is a pity. "The Online Encyclopaedia of Mathematics is the most up-to-date and comprehensive English-language graduate-level reference work in the field of mathematics today. This online edition comprises more than 8,000 entries and illuminates nearly 50,000 notions in mathematics. The Encyclopaedia of Mathematics is updated on a regular basis to remain a quick, precise source of reference to mathematical definitions, concepts, explanations, surveys, examples, terminology and methods, which will prove useful for all mathematicians and other scientists who encounter mathematics in their work. "

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Kattullus — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:42:40 -0800

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an excellent resource for matters philosophical. There you can be enlightened on such diverse subjects as paradoxes existential or logical, Greek or American philosophers obscure to the wider world, philosophers whose names have resounded through the ages, both well-attested and possibly mythical, Buddhist thought and Western mysticism and definitions of thorny and difficult concepts. And that's just a small sampling of the letter P section. All articles are written by specialists on the subject and the editors of the IEP are all academic philosophers. The encyclopedia is far from complete, so if you think you can help out, they have a list of their 100 most desired articles.

Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology

Kattullus — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 23:33:33 -0800

Theoi Greek Mythology is an internet encyclopedia with over 1500 pages on various characters from classical myth, covering everything from famous gods and goddesses to obscure nymphs, titans and monsters. If the confusing familial relations of the Greek gods vex you, there are 10 different family trees to help you make sense of it all. There's also an extensive library of ancient works concerning classical mythology and a bibliography should you long for more to read. Last but not least, Theoi has a gallery of over 1200 artworks from antiquity, which I have been happily browsing for a good while.

Duh?

washburn — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:57:07 -0800

Have you noticed quite a number of stupid things lately? Perhaps now you will find them documented in the Encyclopedia of Stupid.

Scholarpedia

Upton O'Good — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 11:37:55 -0800

Worried about inaccuracies in Wikipedia? Try Scholarpedia, a peer-reviewed encyclopedia, with articles written by experts in their field. Currently, it covers four areas: - Neuroscience - Dynamical Systems - Computational Intelligence - Astrophysics The content for many articles is still in development, especially in Astrophysics; however, there are still plenty of interesting articles in progress. Here is the list of finished articles; here is the list of ones that are finished and peer-reviewed.

Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components

Blazecock Pileon — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 05:31:50 -0800

More than fifty selected articles from The Princeton Companion of Mathematics (username: Guest, password: PCM) — a thematically-organized compendium of mathematics and mathematicians from Fields Medal-winner Tim Gowers. [via, previously]

Berkshire Encyclopedias online free

stbalbach — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:36:04 -0800

Berkshire Publishing has made available the full-text of some quality but little known reference works: Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction (1-vol), Global Perspectives on the United States (1-vol), Berkshire Encyclopedia of World Sport (4-vol), Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History (5-vol), Berkshire Encyclopedia of Extreme Sports.

Encyclopedia of Life

homunculus — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:15:24 -0800

The Encyclopedia of Life project will create a compendium of every aspect of the biosphere. It aims to compile data on all of Earth's 1.8 million known species on one Web site, and will include species descriptions, pictures, maps, videos, sound, sightings by amateurs, and links to entire genomes and scientific journal papers. E. O. Wilson is getting his wish. [Via BB.]

WiserEarth

alms — Wed, 09 May 2007 19:28:44 -0800

WiserEarth is a user-editable relational database that aspires to list, categorize, and describe every non profit and civil society organization on Earth. It currently includes 1 0 4,3 0 4 o r g a n i z a t i o n s which can be viewed by name, location, or areas of focus. You can perform complex searches. You can post (or search) jobs, events, and resources. You can discuss areas of focus, such as Urban Forestry, Evolutionary Ecology, or government oversight and reform. You can also visualize the networks connecting these areas of focus and the various organizations.

May Your Life Be Long And Useful, Like A Roll Of Toilet Paper

amyms — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 18:45:39 -0800

The Toilet Paper Encyclopedia from toiletpaperworld. Filled with fun facts about the history of toilet paper, including the results of various toilet paper surveys (more people chose toilet paper over food as a necessity if stranded on a deserted island), toilet paper stories, statistics about which kinds of toilet paper are most popular worldwide, and zingers (toilet paper jokes and observations). Previously on Metafilter, The Whole World Toilet Paper Museum.

You need to brush up your toes young Hobbit!

owhydididoit — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 16:45:30 -0800

The Thain's Book is an online encyclopedia of Middle-earth in the Third Age. Oh, you're an expert? Take the Middle-earth Challenge and prove it!

Left-footed Flotsam Jandal Phenomenon

If I Had An Anus — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 08:10:41 -0800

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find the article about the flatworm with 230 penises and one vagina referenced (but unfortunately not linked) in this article about the in the amazing Earth, Sea and Sky exhibit which opened today as part of New Zealand's beautiful Te Ara Encyclopedia.

Digital Universe and ManyOne

MetaMonkey — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 20:26:09 -0800

Digital Universe , an alternative to Wikipedia, has been launched by wikipedia proposer Larry Sanger. Digital Universe will be powered by ManyOne, a new 3D browser, will include paid experts, a subscription option, and will require real names from contributors. This may or may not be connected to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales' editing his own bio to remove reference to Sanger as co-founder.

Nature Magazine: Wikipedia almost as scientifically accurate as Britannica

Tlogmer — Wed, 14 Dec 2005 23:43:00 -0800

The journal Nature: "Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries."
Nature had experts review articles from both encyclopedias. (Also, 10% of Nature authors contribute to Wikipedia.)

Fun with old knowledge

blahblahblah — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 00:35:14 -0800

Pliny's Natural History, the first encyclopedia. Featuring chapters like "Other wonderful things related to dolphins" and one mentioning the lynx and the sphinx in a single passage. Obviously he got a lot very wrong, but it launched a tradition of authoritative encyclopedias. More recently, you hopefully know that the forty-four million word eleventh (1911) edition of Encyclopedia Britannica is online, later volumes are not, but you can still find elsewhere Trotsky's article on Lenin, Freud's on psychoanalysis, Houdini on conjuring, or Lawrence of Arabia on guerillas. Britannica also offers a series of articles from its archives showing how views on Mars or the debate in 1768 over whether California was an island. Other fascinating encyclopedias online include the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia and the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia, and the Encyclopedia Mythica.

Encyclopedia of Chicago

me3dia — Thu, 12 May 2005 09:58:18 -0800

The Encyclopedia of Chicago is now online and free, less than a year after being released in book form.

Cellphedia

stbalbach — Tue, 03 May 2005 21:21:23 -0800

Cellphedia is a thesis project created by Limor Garcia (NYU). It's a cell phone application that allows to send and receive encyclopedia-type inquiries through Text messaging. A user will be able to get all the information they need – from “how old is the queen of England?” to “how many miles is the Brooklyn Bridge?” – through a real-time social network, while walking in the street.

Wikipedia anywhere

Mwongozi — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 08:57:57 -0800

Wapedia is Wikipedia for your WAP phone or PDA. Alternatively, why not just download the whole thing and carry it with you?