Physics for Entertainment, Paperback

Physics For Entertainment by Yakov Perelman. Published in 1913, a best-seller in the 1930s and long out of print, Physics for Entertainment was translated from Russian into many languages and influenced science students around the world. Among them was Grigori Yakovlevich Perelman, the Russian mathematician (unrelated to the author), who solved the Poincar conjecture, and who was awarded and rejected the Fields Medal. Grigori's father, an electrical engineer, gave him Physics for Entertainment to encourage his son's interest in mathematics. 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 book's 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." Ideas from this book are still used by science teachers today. Yakov Isidorovich Perelman died in the siege of Leningrad in 1942.

Yakov Perelman. Perelman was born in 1882 in the town of Byelostok, Congress Poland. 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 and astronomy were translated into various languages by the erstwhile Soviet Union. The great scientist K.E.Tsiolkovsky 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. Yakov Perelman is not related to the Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman, 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.