Yakov Isidorovich Perelman (; – 16 March 1942) was a

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

and

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

science writer and author of many

popular science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

books, including ''Physics Can Be Fun'' and ''Mathematics Can Be Fun'' (both translated from

into English).

Life and work

Perelman was born in 1882 in the town of

Białystok Białystok is the largest city in northeastern Poland and the capital of the Podlaskie Voivodeship. It is the List of cities and towns in Poland, tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area. Biał ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. He obtained the Diploma in Forestry from the Imperial Forestry Institute (Now Saint-Petersburg State Forestry University) in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, in 1909. He was influenced by

Ernst Mach Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( ; ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the understanding of the physics of shock waves. The ratio of the speed of a flow or object to that of ...

and probably the Russian Machist

Alexander Bogdanov Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer and Bolshevik revolutionary. He was a polymath who pioneered blood transfusion, a ...

in his pedagogical approach to popularising science. After the success of "Physics for Entertainment", Perelman set out to produce other books, in which he showed himself to be an imaginative populariser of science. Especially popular were ''"Arithmetic for entertainment", "Mechanics for entertainment", "Geometry for Entertainment", "Astronomy for entertainment", "Lively Mathematics", " Physics Everywhere", and "Tricks and Amusements". His famous books on

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

and

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

were translated into various languages by the erstwhile

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. The scientist

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (; rus, Константин Эдуардович Циолковский, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin ɪdʊˈardəvʲɪtɕ tsɨɐlˈkofskʲɪj, a=Ru-Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.oga; – 19 September 1935) was a Russi ...

thought highly of Perelman's talents and creative genius, writing of him in the preface of ''Interplanetary Journeys'': "The author has long been known by his popular, witty and quite scientific works on physics, astronomy and mathematics, which are, moreover written in a marvelous language and are very readable." Perelman has also authored a number of textbooks and articles in Soviet popular science magazines. In addition to his educational and scientific writings, he also worked as an editor of science magazines, including ''Nature and People'' and ''In the Workshop of Nature''. Perelman died from starvation in 1942, during the German

Siege of Leningrad The siege of Leningrad was a Siege, military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 t ...

. The siege started on 9 September 1941 and lasted 872 days, until 27 January 1944. The Siege of Leningrad was one of the longest, most destructive sieges of a major city in modern history and one of the costliest in terms of casualties (1,117,000). His older brother Yosif was a writer who published under the pseudonym Osip Dymov. He is not related to the Russian mathematician

Grigori Perelman Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman (, ; born 13June 1966) is a Russian mathematician and geometer who is known for his contributions to the fields of geometric analysis, Riemannian geometry, and geometric topology. In 2005, Perelman resigned from his ...

, who was born in 1966 to a different Yakov Perelman. However, Grigori Perelman told ''The New Yorker'' that his father gave him ''Physics for Entertainment'', and it inspired his interest in mathematics.

Books

* ''Mathematics can be Fun'' * ''Astronomia Recreativa'' * ''Physics for Entertainment'' (1913) * ''Figures for Fun'' * ''Algebra can be Fun'' * ''Fun with Maths & Physics'' * ''Arithmetic for entertainment'' * ''Mechanics for entertainment'' * ''Geometry for Entertainment'' * ''Astronomy for entertainment'' * ''Lively Mathematics'' * ''Physics Everywhere'' * ''Tricks and Amusements'' * ''Physics Can Be Fun'' He has also written several books on interplanetary travel (''Interplanetary Journeys, On a Rocket to Stars, and World Expanses'')

''Physics for Entertainment''

In 1913, Russian bookshops began carrying ''Physics for Entertainment''. The educationalist's new book attracted young readers seeking answers to scientific questions. ''Physics for Entertainment'' had a unique layout as well as an instructive style. In the preface (11th ed.) Perelman wrote: "The main objective of ''Physics for Entertainment'' is to arouse the activity of scientific imagination, to teach the reader to think in the spirit of the science of physics and to create in his mind a wide variety of associations of physical knowledge with the widely differing facts of life, with all that he normally comes into contact with." In the foreword, Perelman describes the contents as “conundrums, brain-teasers, entertaining anecdotes, and unexpected comparisons,” adding, “I have quoted extensively from

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

and other writers, because, besides providing entertainment, the fantastic experiments these writers describe may well serve as instructive illustrations at physics classes.” The 13th edition (1936) would be the last published during the author's lifetime. Among the book's notable topics was the idea of a perpetual machine: a hypothetical machine which could run incessantly performing useful work. The author discusses perpetual motion, highlighting many attempts to build such a machine, and explains why they failed. Other topics included how to jump from a moving car, and why, “according to the law of buoyancy, we would never drown in the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea (; or ; ), also known by #Names, other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east, the Israeli-occupied West Bank to the west and Israel to the southwest. It lies in the endorheic basin of the Jordan Rift Valle ...

.”

Randall Munroe Randall Patrick Munroe (born October 17, 1984) is an American cartoonist, author, and engineer best known as the creator of the webcomic ''xkcd''. Munroe has worked full-time on the comic since late 2006. In addition to publishing a book of the ...

, the creator of the web comic

xkcd ''xkcd'' is a serial webcomic created in 2005 by American author Randall Munroe. Sometimes styled ''XKCD'', the comic's tagline describes it as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". Munroe states on the comic's website that the ...

and author of his own popular science books, wrote:

The book is a series of a few hundred examples, no more than one or two pages each, asking a question that illustrates some idea in basic physics. It’s neat to see what has and hasn’t changed in the last century or so. Many of the examples he uses seem to be straight out of a modern high school physics textbook, while others were totally new to me. And some of the answers to the questions he poses seem obvious, but others made me stop and think.
his His or HIS may refer to: Computing * Hightech Information System, a Hong Kong graphics card company * Honeywell Information Systems * Hybrid intelligent system * Microsoft Host Integration Server Education * Hangzhou International School, ...
diagram ... shows a design for a fountain with no pump — it took me a while to get why it works.... Later in the book, he explains the physics of that drinking bird toy. It’s written in a fun, engaging, conversational style, as if he’s in the room chatting with you about these neat ideas.Physics for Entertainment
Posted on 2009-10-02 by randallpmunro, xkcd: The blag of the webcomic

References

External links

Physics for Entertainment
Free electronic edition at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

.
Figure for Fun: Stories and Conundrums
Free electronic edition at the

.
Astronomy for Entertainment
in Spanish. {{DEFAULTSORT:Perelman, Yakov I. 1882 births 1942 deaths 19th-century male writers from the Russian Empire 19th-century Polish Jews 20th-century Russian mathematicians 20th-century Russian non-fiction writers Deaths by starvation Jewish Polish writers Jewish Russian writers Jewish scientists from the Russian Empire Mathematics popularizers Naturalists from the Russian Empire Nature writers Writers from Białystok Puzzle designers Recreational mathematicians Russian male non-fiction writers Russian scientists Saint-Petersburg State Forestry University alumni Science writers from the Russian Empire Soviet Jews Soviet male non-fiction writers Soviet mathematicians Victims of the Siege of Leningrad

Life and work

Books

''Physics for Entertainment''

See also

References

External links