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Sorcerer
from Putapova street
G. I. Mishkevich
A post of mathematics, a bard of physics, a herald of astronomy—that was rightfully Yakov Isidorovich Perelman. His fascinating books on mathematics (arithmetic, algebra, geometry), physics (mechanics, acoustics, optics), astronomy and mechanical travel have sold millions of copies all over the world. The name of Ya. I. Perelman is associated with an entire era of Russian and especially Soviet popular science literature and its specific direction, which is called entertaining.
Yakov Isidorovich Perelman was born in Bialystok in 1882. His father was an accountant, his mother a schoolteacher.
He published his fascinating “intriguing” work back in 1899, while a student at the Bialystok real estate school. It was an essay “About the expected fiery rain”, published in the “Grodno Provincial Gazette”. The essay exposed in vivid form the changes in the churchmen’s views about the “coming end of the world.” Already in this youthful work, the tasks of the future talented popularizer are clearly visible.
I asked Yakov Isidorovich about how he became a popularizer, and Perelman responded like this:
“I owe this to my teachers and books. They taught me not only to love mathematics and physics, but also to think paradoxically. I began to look for an intriguing beginning everywhere, even where it seemed there was no trace of it.”
Later, Yakov Isidorovich, in the article “On the Methodology of Scientific Popularization,” writes: “Not everyone is able to find something new in the old, and not everyone is inclined to think deeply about what is constantly happening before their eyes.
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zami. To draw attention to offended phenomena, it is necessary to show new, unexpected sides to them.”
In another article, “What is Entertaining Science,” Perelman puts surprise in the first place: “We early cease to be surprised, early we lose the precious ability that prompts interest in things that do not directly affect our existence.”
Ya. I. Perelman perfectly mastered the art of surprising, knew how to intrigue, and touch the reader’s heartstrings. He expected the dry dogmas of school wisdom, turning them into a fascinating subject.
At the beginning of this century, Ya. I. Perelman moved to St. Petersburg and began to engage in literary activity, at the same time indicating a precious ability that encourages interest in things that do not directly affect our existence.”
Here he proposed moving the clocks forward an hour to save fuel for lighting. This proposal has received the force of law.)
When Perelman was studying at the Forestry Institute, Professor A. S. Domogarov drew attention to his mathematical abilities. It was he who instilled in his student a love of the ability to find what is necessary in the general.
While studying at the Forestry Institute, Yakov Isidorovich worked as a proofreader for the book distributor P. P. Soykin. Then he edited the magazines “Nature and People”, “In the Workshop of Nature”, and was published in the “World of Adventures”. Stats signed “I. Lesnoy", “P. Silvestrov”, “Ya. P.”, gained more and more sympathy. Here, in Soikin’s book assignment, Perelman began to seriously concern himself with the problems of an engaging presentation of science, primarily physics. Yakov Isidorovich considered the basis of such a presentation to be the ability to arouse keen interest in the subject. Only interest can facilitate understanding and, consequently, give rise to a conscious and lasting assimilation of the basic sciences.
Ya. I. Perelman’s first book, “Entertaining Physics,” was published in 1913. And its first reader and reader was the famous physicist teacher, professor at St. Petersburg University, Orest Danilovich Khvolson. He invited Perelman to his apartment, and the following conversation took place between them, as Yakov Isidorovich said:
— I read your book with satisfaction, it is excellent. But I haven’t seen your name among physicists. Where would you like to finish your course?
“I am a scientific forester, this is my knowledge…” Perelman became embarrassed.
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” Khvolson answered. “Even without you, we have scientists who are foresters, like trees in the forest, but we don’t have any physicists who could write like you.” Keep writing books like this in the future…
“Entertaining Physics” was followed by a whole series of entertaining books written by Yakov Isidorovich. Yes, Khvolson was right when he dissuaded Perelman from taking up forestry.
Perelman’s teachers, who shaped his art as a popularizer, were also books. He read a lot, systematically and with good pedagogy. His pedagogy was expressed in the fact that Yakov Isidorovich scrupulously kept a card index of what he read and made thousands of extracts. I remember well the racks of neat brown boxes filled with cards covered in caligraphic handwriting. Shelving takes up an entire wall in his spacious office.
Yakov Isidorovich loved to repeat Pascal’s aphorism: “The subject of mathematics is so heartfelt that one must not miss the opportunity to make it a little intriguing”—and he did this with amazing brilliance. Not only in application to mathematics, but also to the general class of physical sciences.
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To contradict A.P. Chekhov (already with his “entertaining” positions), Perelman finds in the story “Tutor” a problem that the merchant Udodov solved instantly on office accounts - much faster than his son’s tutor did. Yakov Isidorovich openly and fascinatingly reveals the mathematical sum of the merchant’s method of solving the problem. L. N. Tolstoy’s story “How a house was repaired in the city of Paris” gives Perelman a reason to comment on the phenomenon of thermal expansion of metals. In “Scenes from Times of Knighthood” by A. S. Pushkin, the dreamer Berthold hopes to discover “perpetual motion.” Perelman introduces Pushkin’s text with a corresponding scientific interpretation into his “Entertaining Physics”.
Perelman’s works are populated by heroes of novels, novels, short stories, and essays - from Servant’s Don Quixote to the Soviet parachute of Kaytanov, a master of exciting jumps.
Ya. I. Perelman analyzes the science fiction works of such royal genre figures as Jules Verne and Herbert Wells. Without in any way detracting from the complex and literary merits, Yakov Isidorovich shows on what scientific “thread” the entire work is held. In August 1934, a group of Leningrad writers and popular scientists met at the Astoria Hotel with the English writer Herbert Wells, who was then in Leningrad.
In the ensuing conversation, Wells, among other things, asked:
Aren’t you the same Jacob Perelman whose column uniquely interpreted my works? I read your “Amazing Physics” - that’s what it’s called in the English translation.
“The same one,” Perelman answered, smiling.
-… and who so kindly exposed my “Invisible Man”, pointing out that he must be blind, like a newborn puppy… And Mr. Cavor for the invention of a substance that is free from the effects of gravity…
— Yes, I wrote about this back in 1915. But that doesn’t make your novels any worse, does it?
“And I must admit, I tried so hard to hide these vulnerable spots from the reader’s eyes!”
His talent was that he could read.
Hundreds of letters were sent from everywhere to Plutalova Street. Many people needed Yakov Isidorovich: workers waited for him in the red corners of the workshops to listen to a lecture on space travel; schoolchildren tried to get him into their science clubs; Lawyers also needed him as a knowledgeable person, an expert on issues related to the scientific interpretation of any controversial fact. (There is a well-known case when Yakov Isidorovich spoke in court in the case of a driver accused of negligence. Perelman explained and proved to the court that the driver was not guilty - the reason was that the formation of the train was incorrect.) Yakov Isidorovich willingly shared his knowledge. Not wanting strength, he patiently “chipped off” capable people everywhere. The writer L.V. Uspensky said about him extremely accurately and aptly: “The bacillus carrier of the missing perelmanitis”!
In Nikolaev, Perelman found industrial engineer V.V. Ryumin, and the author of “Entertaining Chemistry” and “Entertaining Technicalities at a Construction Site” was born. In Moscow, professor of physics A.V. Tsinger was “discovered” - a passionate collector of herbariums. Thanks to Perelman, the physicist Tsinger became the author of the academic book “Entertaining Botany”.
“Entertaining meteorology” comes out with the light hand of Perelman
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D. O. Svyatsky and T. N. Klado, “Entertaining world studies” by V. O. Pryanishchinkov, “Entertaining statistics” by E. E. Svyatlovsky.
The appearance of “Entertaining Mineralogy” and “Entertaining Geochemistry” by Academician A. E. Fersman, “Entertaining Geology” by Academician V. A. Obruchev and “Entertaining Geography” by L. V. Uspensky also owes a lot to Perelman.
Geography, geology, geochemistry, mineralogy, statistics, meteorology, even military science (meaning Colonel V.P. Vnukov’s book “Physics and National Defense”) are included in the orbit of educational literature.
In 1935, Yakov Isidorovich with his team - V. A. Kamsky, A. Ya. Malkov, V. O. Pryanishchinkov, L. V. Uspensky - founded the House of Educational Science (DZN) in Leningrad. It was a genuine cabinet of curiosities for educational sciences: physics, mathematics, astronomy, geography, geology, meteorology. In 1939, there were more than 100 large exhibits in the Leningrad Science Museum, grouped in four departments: Astronomy, Geography (with the Geology Hall), Mathematics, and Physics (with the Optics Hall). In addition, an Electricity Department was created.
Everything in this house was exciting, but everything was strictly justified. Moving from room to room, from exhibit to exhibit, the visitor became convinced that the simple, boring school-truths are not so simple. Here people see the mediocre as entertaining and the boring as exciting and interesting.
Here, for example, is “Galton’s Board”. It was a very simple exhibit - an inclined board studded with steel pins. Millet was poured into the funnel. Hitting the stuffed needles, the grains were placed on an inclined board, always following the same curved line.
This was how the mathematical law of normal distribution was demonstrated - Gauss’s law. Gauss and… wheat!
DZN was not a cultural and educational “eatery”. Entertaining was not an end in itself, but a means of promoting science.
During this period of his activity, Perelman actively collaborated with such luminaries of accounting package science and technology as K. E. Tsiolkovsky, F. A. Tsander, S. P. Korolev, N. A. Rynin and others. He met with him through work at LenGIRD and carried on extensive correspondence.
In memory of the merits of Yakov Isidorovich Perelman, one of the craters on the far side of the Moon, first formed by the Soviet automatic international station “Luna-3” on October 7, 1959, is named after him. The Ya. I. Perelman crater has a diameter of 95 kilometers and is located at a point with lunar coordinates β = +16°30′ and λ = −160°.
The name of Ya. I. Perelman is immortalized on the Moon… It’s a shame that this has not been done on Earth. Plutalova Street, where Perelman lived, did not become Perelman’s street, and there is not even a memorial plaque on house No. 12. The House of Educational Science has not been revived either. …
We have tried to sketch a portrait of a person whose name is widely known throughout the world. Let us add that Yakov Isidorovich Perelman was a true patriot. When the Great Patriotic War began, he found himself evacuated from Leningrad. In the very first weeks, his only son Mikhail died at the front. His wife, a doctor, soon died of hunger. On April 3, 1942, Yakov Isidorovich Perelman died of exhaustion in besieged Leningrad.