A Homeschooling Infographic

I was recently pointed to this interesting chart about homeschooling. I do think a lot of these numbers reflect the socio-economic, the educational status, and the general outlook on education of the parents who choose, or can choose, to homeschool  their kids (though the chart itself shows numbers suggesting that household income is not a key determinant of homeschooling student success). And there is a huge variation in how the homeschooling is done, from recreating the traditional classroom at home to unschooling. But it nonetheless gives some good insights into the prospects for kids and parents pursuing alternatives to traditional schooling.


Created by: College At Home

How many Books

My 8 year old asked out of the blue, the way kids do, "Dad, how many books are there?" 


After some discussion, it emerged that he was looking for a count of all the books ever published. 


Using rough back of the envelope techniques I teach engineering freshmen, I conservatively estimated an upper-bound of about 500 million. 


Then I looked it up online. Turns out Google did a count just a couple of years ago, and found that there were about 174 million known unique works.