Yakov I. Perelman
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Yakov I. Perelman (Yakov Isidorovich Perelman) (1882-1942) was a Russian author of many popular science books. Works include Physics Can Be Fun and Mathematics Can Be Fun (both translated from Russian into English).
YI Perelman was born in 1882 in the town of Byelostok. In 1909, he obtained athe diploma of forester from the St. Petersburg Forestry Institute. 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 in 1942, during the Siege of Leningrad [1].
Contrary to a common misconception, he is not the father of Russian mathematician Grigori Perelman, who was born in 1966 to a different Yakov Perelman.
[edit] Books
- 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.)
[edit] Physics for entertainment
In 1913 in Russian bookshops appeared a book by the outstanding educationalist, entiled 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".
