In order for books printed on paper not to die out, they must have a connection with gadgets

It is necessary to separate the need for printing books on paper and the need to read them.

Today in my house the best book is not the one with the most wonderful content, and not the one whose spine fits the wallpaper, but the one with the roughest binding.

Experimentally, I found that as a computer mouse pad it is more convenient - and smarter than anything! - use the book. Which was once a source of knowledge. But today I read almost everything on the Internet.

Little by little I started using books as the book's mousepad. And by trial and error I learned that the best for this purpose out of the hundreds that I have is Gradshtein and Ryzhik's "Collection of Integrals, Sums, Series and Products" (1st ed., 1951). The thousand-page tome was once the bible of mathematicians and theoretical physicists. And which ... is not needed today, since programs like "Wolfram-Mathematics" calculate any integrals and series with all substitutions of variables in a matter of seconds! And unmistakably!

Such an unexpected application of a book printed on paper in the era of the Internet and gadgets. Whether this is progress or the opposite of progress is up to you.

Will humanity ever read books, as educated people around the world have been reading for centuries? From childhood to old age. At home, at work and in transport. In gardens and parks. The most important question, the answer to which is not obvious, but archival. Therefore, it requires reflection and research.

Formally, the above question is similar to the question: Will humanity ever again ride not on cars, but on horses, mules and donkeys? Not exotic for the sake of, but everyday, with the aim of transporting heavy loads and moving from one point to another.

The principle according to which both questions should be answered is the same. Will! But only if it is rational, and not nostalgic and not romantically necessary.

But will such a time come again - in the event that civilization does not end - when instead of computers and calculators, calculations will be carried out on office accounts, or - take it higher (it is also lower) on the fingers? And if not, then will the “Beauty of the Universe! The crown of all living! the ability to multiply and divide without resorting to computer technology. A skill that may die out as unnecessary. Like the ability to drive a horse or chop wood.

Let's think. How could it happen that the books standing on the shelves in the house of an educated person - to which I, perhaps, in self-conceit, rank myself - books collected by him and his ancestors over decades, are not read? Or - not reread ...

It's not because I (like billions of other people) don't read at all. I read, and even if measured by the number of letters read per day, more than before. Because the way we read has changed. I, like billions of representatives of the genus Homo sapiens, do not read what is printed on paper, but what appears on the display screen. And this happens not on a whim, but completely rationally. Because reading from a computer screen has undoubted advantages.

Today, the very method of learning something and obtaining information has changed. The process of cognition has become mosaic. What has never happened before! Additions to knowledge in any subject are made when receiving help on the Internet, which can be tens or hundreds. As well as references to references et cetera. Moreover, these "helps" can be opened one after another in one window or stored on the computer display at the same time. The textbook of the 21st century is only the basis of knowledge of the subject to which it is devoted, and does not exhaust knowledge after reading it from cover to cover. Such combined cognition when reading a book printed on paper is impossible not only practically, but even theoretically.

As for reading "massive" texts (scientific monographs, novels, epics), many prefer not to delve into emotions and nuances. And watch, for example, a movie on the Internet, created on this literary basis. Fifty or even just twenty years ago, this would have been impossible. To read a summary, clearly stated, and stop there - in the past and the century before last, it would be considered uncultured. But in an era when most of the information is obtained by mosaic knowledge, this is rational and optimal.

At the same time, the text of the film (as, by the way, of the novel) can be translated into the language of the consumer automatically! The translation that artificial intelligence can now do is imperfect, but absolutely understandable. And the technology of automatic translation from any existing language to any other is rapidly improving.

Nothing like this can be obtained by reading a book printed on paper.

This is the status quo, sad for the older generation, but a matter of course for the youth who were born with gadgets. Will it ever change? Are there any reasons why reading on paper might be preferred to reading on paper in the future? And will it be necessary to start printing books and magazines again on a material carrier (paper, parchment or papyrus)?

First of all, it is necessary to separate the need for printing books on paper and the need to read them. Indeed: why publish books if no one or almost no one reads them?

It turns out that there is a reason, including in the era of virtual reality. Books found on the Internet are disappearing in ways that book-burning inquisitors could not even dream of!

An example from my experience. The site of the international conference, in which I was co-chairman of the organizing committee, disappeared with the push of an unknown finger, along with the reports! The European journal New and Old Concepts in Physics, which had many excellent papers published in Poland, was (after the editor-in-chief retired) sold to China. In the Celestial Empire, having discovered that it does not generate income, it was simply erased from the Web. After that, it is not possible to find articles in this journal, to which there were hundreds of references. The magazine disappeared as if it never existed!

Another reason for the disappearance of texts is the obsolescence of equipment and software on which texts (information) were stored and with the help of which they were created. Or - if the author of the book (journal editor) has passed away and stopped paying for the storage of his or collective works on the server, on which the text automatically disappears after a year of non-payment.

Neither one, nor the other, nor the third is possible if the journal or book is stored in the leading libraries of the world not virtually, but materially. In the form of an ordinary book, a codex.

Thus, it is necessary to publish books on paper for storage in libraries even if they are hardly read. Just to preserve the information, the semantics contained in the printed text. How it has been for thousands of years!

Will mankind ever read books printed on paper again? Answer: in the event that the text is important, whether it is Joyce's "Ulysses" or Landau and Lifshitz's "Course of Theoretical Physics", it is quite possible. But ... for this, a book printed on paper must have a connection with a computer. What is required is not necessary when reading every book (for example, about Escher's graphics or Picasso's painting), but such an opportunity should be in any book of the future standing on the shelf! Today, this is achieved using a QR code. As well as voice commands (an opportunity that appeared only 2-3 years ago). At the same time, the method of connecting the book to the computer, which will undoubtedly change, needs to be updated regularly. Or to have the possibility of such an update on the Internet or in the library.

Mosaic cognition (whose symbol is a flea jumping from place to place) and thoughtful cognition (whose symbol is a book) should be combined with each other in the future. Otherwise, the civilization of the Internet and gadgets will destroy itself. And a reasonable person will cease to be reasonable. 

NY

ДЛЯ ТОГО, ЧТОБЫ КНИГИ, НАПЕЧАТАННЫЕ НА БУМАГЕ, НЕ ВЫМЕРЛИ, ОНИ ДОЛЖНЫ ИМЕТЬ СВЯЗЬ С ГАДЖЕТАМИ