PS>But when science books are outdated the day they come off the 
PS>press I don't see why we would want to use them instead of 
PS>something like the NASA home page?
Let me ask you a question, Paul, as I'm not sure you have 
the full perspective here.... While something like the NASA 
home page may be glitzy and have lots of neat stuff to see, 
how does it translate into an understanding of orbital
mechanics, Newton's Laws, and chemical composition of fuels,
for example?
I think you're looking only at what is called descriptive
science; ie, those facets of science which can be described
in terms of words (and, therefore, images) rather than of 
math and equations...
There will always be a need for the "classical" approach to
physics, for example, regardless of its "datedness", simply 
because it is fundamental to understanding how the world
behaves.  Science texts are seldom "out of date" simply
because the fundamentals haven't changed over the last 50
years at least...
For example, and along with your analogy, NASA might have a
nifty little animated clip which shows a rocket's operation.
They might remind us that the operation of a rocket is based
upon Newton's Third Law, known usually as: For every action
there is an equal but opposite reaction.  Now that's all
well and fine, but people still have the impression that
the rocket exhaust is "pushing" on the air behind the
rocket, thus propelling the rocket itself.  Beyond that,
without the math and equations, their understanding of what
is happening is limited.  Yes, you can present the material
on the home page and have the student read it, but what then 
is the advantage over a book?
For firing up interest, or catching someone's interest, a
quick, flashy presentation is wonderful, but the nuts and
bolts is still "old" stuff, and relies on the application
of math and equations.  I can see that books are second
best to 3-d video for descriptive science, but I see no
advantage whatsoever for the understanding of scientific
principles in general....
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