So I want to start off and say that there are some good books on this list and that there is a decent range of topics: biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics. However, it is like 90% physics books and not a whole lot in the computer science or engineering fields which are massive. I own 20-30 textbooks in my very narrow sub-slice of a subsection of electrical engineering. This is a terrific start, but we need a whole lot more.
Wikipedia is completely inadequate in my field too.
I'd actually be really interested to know what causes discrepancies in subject matter authorship in Wikipedia.
Physics, for example, is rife with very thorough articles, many of which are written for a graduate level. (Not everything is right everywhere, but a surprising amount for the volume.) Lots and lots of thoroughly explained equations.
Computer science is also very well documented, with numerous examples.
Materials science is very poor though, and with biology it seems to depend. Evolutionary theory seems popular but detailed taxonomy entries do not.
I'm curious why this is. Do professionals or enthusiasts in different fields really have such gaps in their willingness to contribute? In computer science, open source software could provide some prior art to convince people that Wikipedia is worth contributing to, but what about the rest?
