>>11682418For 99% of the time yes: the core concept will be the same, obviously, some ancillary stuff may change, but mostly it will contain less errors. There are books that still contain mistakes at the third edition because the professor can't be bothered less, and just want to milk his students, but that's to be expected to happen at least once in university; usually however professors are based enough to provide all the material you need to pass the exam, and the textbook is truly optional. That said, when you're doing a bachelor you'll hardly ever need any up-to-date information while when you're in a master course you may need something fresh, especially, when the state of the art advances quickly. For instance, in my case, commercial aircraft propulsion is moving towards UHB turbofans, and geared turbofans, so a lecturer (and whatever book he chooses) that will take into account these -relatively- recent changes is a good thing. I can imagine in other quickly developing fields like AI, quantum computing, and so on, a new edition of a textbook might have some added value, but if you're studing Calculus or whatever you can get a book from 50 years ago and it won't make much of a difference.
