Pears Cyclopaedia is one i grew up with. It was a tiny book with ~1000 tissue paper thin pages that seemed to always have everything i needed. From logarithmic tables and maths/physics functions to a periodic table.

I went to school before wikipedia and this book helped a lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pears%27_Cyclopaedia

I have a copy of this from the turn of the century (last century) which says (in paraphrase) Physics: some recent developments from physicists such as Dr Einstein & Prof. Bohr suggest there may be further changes in our understanding of this field -It's pre quantum mechanics classical physics admitting its on the cusp of a significant change..

One of the greatest signs of human progress is that now we know enough facts to fill our pocket almanacs with them instead of making up prognostications.

One could argue that it’s a sign of the human condition that we’ve been able to compensate for the new technology with an even greater tendency to prognosticate.

The tendency to prognosticate without any real evidence will increase in the future.

Actually the outlook for prognostication is-- wait let me check-- it's "ask again later". Huh, oh well.

I think the most meta-thing here is instead of using almanacs, we’re here linking to a Wikipedia article on a pocket reference.

To be fair that pocket reference is amazing.