Over the years, I’ve had people email me asking why I’ve made this website. After all, I could probably make money selling subscriptions to all of this, and instead I’ve gone the route of making everything available for free. What sort of crazy person does this?
Here are some of the reasons that I’m motivated to maintain this site:
- Religion: Many people make the assumption that religion plays a role in my maintenance of the site because they can’t imagine giving something away if money can be made from it. Without going into the details of my religious beliefs except to say that I’m a Christian, my belief is that God wants us to serve Him, and the best way that we can serve Him is to serve each other (Matthew 22:37-40). I’m not going to say that I wouldn’t maintain the site without my religious beliefs, but I certainly think I wouldn’t have been so good about keeping it up-to-date (ish). If you’ve been considering finding out more about God, stop by the church of your choice and see if anything “clicks” for you.
- A belief that “information wants to be free.” I’ve done a pretty good job of trying to make chemistry available to others. I didn’t invent chemistry, and I’m pretty sure that each of my ways of explaining chemistry have been used by at least somebody over the years. For me to try to take credit for all of chemistry education when I’m simply a guy who wants other people to learn about something I find to be very important is ridiculous. This motivation causes me to not only keep the site free, but to place all of it into the public domain so that others can use it, change it, and publish it without limitation. You don’t need to ask permission: Just help other people to learn by using it as you feel is most useful. (An aside: There’s a website called “Teachers Pay Teachers” where teachers post resources they’ve made for other teachers to buy – it’s a pretty big business. Over the years I’ve found that a lot of people have sold things I’ve written without giving me credit or getting my advance permission. I’m actually delighted this has happened, because it makes my resources more available to more teachers and students. I would, however, appreciate having my website info posted with this stuff so people can come and get it for free at the source, but just that it’s used to help students and teachers is enough for me.
- It’s a nice thing to do. I’ve spent a lot of time studying chemistry over the years, and I think it’s just a nice thing for me to do to make this available to others. Again, I don’t care if I get the credit for this or if people put their own name on these resources and try to pass it off as their own – I still think it’s nice that others don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
So, that’s why I’ve made this site. If you have some specialized knowledge, try making your own website and sharing what you know with others. I think you’ll find it to be satisfying, plus it’s kind of fun when people email you to say how much they hate you. Why they do this, I have no idea.
The Cavalcade o' Chemistry 