A resource that takes us towards accessing “all” knowledge could be anything or anyone – a person, a book, a website, a theory or whatever! Here is what we have compiled so far:

  1. Attempts to understand everything
  2. Attempts to provide access to everything
  3. Attempts to go beyond current knowledge

1. Attempts to understand “everything”

Theory of Everything

There have been many attempts to explain “everything” including the elusive “Theory of everything”. The earliest mention of the term “Theory of everything” in a technical literature was Physicist John Ellis in his paper titled “The superstring – Theory of everything, or of nothing?” published in Nature. However this theory seems to be limited to the world views as seen from the eyes (or mind!) of a Physicist. For example, the conventional approach states:

“A Theory of Everything would unify all the fundamental interactions of nature: gravitation, strong interaction, weak interaction, and electromagnetism. Because the weak interaction can transform elementary particles from one kind into another, the TOE should also yield a deep understanding of the various different kinds of possible particles.”

2. Attempts to provide “access” to everything

Universal Access to All Knowledge

Archive.org – a non-profit is trying to build a digital library of all Internet resources and their mission is “Universal Access to All Knowledge”. This portal allows anybody to  not only consume knowledge but upload content as well.

Access to Knowledge movement (A2K)

In October 2003, a conference was organised by the Max Planck Society and the European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO) project. This led to an international statement called Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities on open access and access to knowledge.

Over a period of time many individuals and organizations have been coming together to help make knowledge accessible to all – few initiatives being:

Attempts to go beyond current knowledge

The Reality Club – Edge Foundation – www.edge.org

Books

Free Books

  • Free eBooks – Project Gutenberg
  • www.bookboon.com: Bookboon.com has published more than 1,000 free textbooks for students. These textbooks can be downloaded in PDF format without prior registration.
  • Library Genesis or LibGen: A search engine for articles and books on various topics, allowing free access to content that is otherwise paid or not available. Includes content from Elsevier’s ScienceDirect portal.
  • Many Books: Another collection of free ebook includes many books from Gutenberg archive.
  • Feedbooks: Both free and paid books.
  • PDF Books World:

 

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