Yakov Isidorovich Perelman (russian: Яков Исидорович Перельман; – 16 March 1942) was a
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
and
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
science writer and author of many
popular science
''Popular Science'' (also known as ''PopSci'') is an American digital magazine carrying popular science content, which refers to articles for the general reader on science and technology subjects. ''Popular Science'' has won over 58 awards, incl ...
books, including ''Physics Can Be Fun'' and ''Mathematics Can Be Fun'' (both translated from
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
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 tenth-largest city in Poland, second in terms of population density, and thirteenth in area.
Białystok is located in the Białystok Up ...
,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
. He obtained the Diploma in Forestry from the
Imperial Forestry Institute
Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism.
Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to:
Places
United States
* Imperial, California
* Imperial, Missouri
* Imperial, Nebraska
* Imperial, Pennsylvania
* Imperial, Texas
...
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, in 1909. He was influenced by
Ernst Mach
Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( , ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Moravian-born Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mach ...
and probably the Russian Machist
Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Богда́нов; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and B ...
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 natural science that studies matter, its 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 which r ...
and
astronomy
Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...
were translated into various languages by the erstwhile
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
.
The scientist
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky (russian: Константи́н Эдуа́рдович Циолко́вский , , p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin ɪdʊˈardəvʲɪtɕ tsɨɐlˈkofskʲɪj , a=Ru-Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.oga; – 19 September 1935) ...
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 (russian: links=no, translit=Blokada Leningrada, Блокада Ленинграда; german: links=no, Leningrader Blockade; ) was a prolonged military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the Soviet city of L ...
. The siege started at 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
Osip Dymov (Russian: Осип Дымов) is the central fictional character in the classic Russian story " The Grasshopper" (''Poprygunya''; 1892) by Anton Chekhov.Loehlin, James N. (2010). The Cambridge introduction to Chekhov'. Cambridge, UK ...
. He is not related to the Russian mathematician
Grigori Perelman
Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman ( rus, links=no, Григорий Яковлевич Перельман, p=ɡrʲɪˈɡorʲɪj ˈjakəvlʲɪvʲɪtɕ pʲɪrʲɪlʲˈman, a=Ru-Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman.oga; born 13 June 1966) is a Russian mathemati ...
, 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 ...
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
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
Perpetual motion is the motion of bodies that continues forever in an unperturbed system. A perpetual motion machine is a hypothetical machine that can do work infinitely without an external energy source. This kind of machine is impossible, a ...
: 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 ( he, יַם הַמֶּלַח, ''Yam hamMelaḥ''; ar, اَلْبَحْرُ الْمَيْتُ, ''Āl-Baḥrū l-Maytū''), also known by other names, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank ...
.”
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 th ...
, the creator of the web comic
xkcd
''xkcd'', sometimes styled ''XKCD'', is a webcomic created in 2005 by American author Randall Munroe. The comic's tagline describes it as "a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". Munroe states on the comic's website that the name ...
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, in ...
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
Drinking birds, also known as insatiable birdies, dunking birds, drinky birds, water birds, dipping birds, and “Sippy Chickens” are toy heat engines that mimic the motions of a bird drinking from a water source. They are sometimes incorrectly ...
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
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...