Andrew wrote:


The UK tax guide is over 21,000 pages.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tolleys-Yel.../dp/1474311067

Do you stand on that ?

Or start a fire with it ?

That's how I classify my book collection here,
best for standing, best for burning.

The CRC book is noteworthy, in having a "table of random numbers".
That usually leads to some funny looks from people, when
you tell them that. But that's not why you buy a copy.

I think it was supposed to have a million compounds
listed, and when I had a term project in analytical
chemistry, by doing a simple melting point, I was
able to narrow the list of possible compounds to
around 200. No fancy instruments like NMR and
Mass Spec needed, to get that far. Since the
sample I was given, decomposes with time, it
was very important to do the melting point right
away, so it would be accurate while the material
was pure. Then crack open the CRC tables and
go through the melting points, to the right section.
That's the only time it got used for the intended purpose.

If you want to learn chemistry, standing on that
book will elevate you.

In high school, we had "collectors items". You
had to buy a CRC tables. And a slide rule.
(Remember, these are nerds.) There were plenty of
hilarious scenes in class involving slide rules. Like,
one day, the teacher is doing something on the board,
that required dividing by two. We look across the room,
and one of the class geniuses has his slide rule out,
dividing by 2. It cracked up the class. Because most
of the students in the room, were quite capable of
dividing by 2 without "assistance". Then the look on
his face, when he figures out he was caught dividing by 2
on a slide rule. It's just like reaching for a
calculator, when you should be able to do stuff in
your head. Like adding zero to a number, and needing
a calculator to do it.

Paul