Yakov I. Perelman
Encyclopedia
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
and Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
science writer and author of many popular science
Popular science
Popular science, sometimes called literature of science, is interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is broad-ranging, often written by scientists as well as journalists, and is presented in many...
, including Physics Can Be Fun and Mathematics Can Be Fun (both translated from Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
into English).
Perelman was born in 1882 in the town of Byelostok, Congress Poland
Congress Poland
The Kingdom of Poland , informally known as Congress Poland , created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, was a personal union of the Russian parcel of Poland with the Russian Empire...
. He obtained the diploma of forester from the St. Petersburg Forestry Institute in 1909. 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
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
and astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
were translated into various languages by the erstwhile Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
The great scientist K.E.Tsiolkovsky
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was an Imperial Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory. Along with his followers the German Hermann Oberth and the American Robert H. Goddard, he is considered to be one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics...
always thought highly of the talent and creative genius of Perelman. He wrote 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, scientific and literary activities, he has also devoted much time to editing. He was the editor of magazines Nature and people and In the workshop of nature.
Perelman died from starvation in 1942, during the German Siege of Leningrad
Siege of Leningrad
The Siege of Leningrad, also known as the Leningrad Blockade was a prolonged military operation resulting from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad, now known as Saint Petersburg, in the Eastern Front theatre of World War II. It started on 8 September 1941, when the last...
.
He is not related to the Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman
Grigori Perelman
Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman is a Russian mathematician who has made landmark contributions to Riemannian geometry and geometric topology.In 1992, Perelman proved the soul conjecture. In 2002, he proved Thurston's geometrization conjecture...
, 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
- Fun with Maths & Physics
- Arithmetic for entertainment
- Mechanics for entertainment
- Geometry for Entertainment
- Astronomy for entertainment
- Lively Mathematics
- Physics Everywhere
- Tricks and Amusements
He has also written several books on interplanetary travel (Interplanetary Journeys, On a rocket to stars, and World Expanses etc.)
Physics for entertainment
In 1913 in Russian bookshops appeared a book by the outstanding educationalist, entitled Physics for entertainment. It struck the fancy of the young who found in it the answers to many of the questions that interested them.Physics for entertainment had not only an interesting layout, it was also immensely instructive. In the preface to the 11th edition, 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, the book’s author describes the contents as “conundrums, brain-teasers, entertaining anecdotes, and unexpected comparisons,” adding, “I have quoted extensively from Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Mark Twain and other writers, because, besides providing entertainment, the fantastic experiments these writers describe may well serve as instructive illustrations at physics classes.” The last edition(13th),in lifetime of author was published in 1936. One of the most interesting topic of the book is, the idea of a perpetual machine(a hypothetical machine which is able to run incessantly and can do some useful work) and perpetual motion. The book explains many attempts made to build such machine and reasons why they didn't work. 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.”
External links
- Physics for Entertainment Free electronic edition at the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
. - Biography in Spanish.
See also
Perel'man (crater)Perel'man (crater)
Perel'man is a worn impact crater that lies on the Moon's far side. It is located less than one crater diameter to the northwest of the prominent crater Scaliger. To the west-southwest is the elongated Bowditch. Southwest of Perel'man is a small lunar mare that has been named Lacus Solitudinis.This...