Other Non-Fiction Perelman, Yakov: Physics for Entertainment (Illustrated) V2. 9-July-2010

[ade_mcc]

Hello!

After a long on-going battle to downsize and make space in the house, I justified to myself the benefits of purchasing an ebook reader and two weeks a-go, bought a PRS-300. I was amazed at just how quickly I got used to reading on a 'screen' after previous futile attempts to read off of laptops and pretty soon, was both disappointed in how some books dealt with footnotes, and amazed at the incredible work that can be done in such works as Zelda_Pinwheel's Three Men in a Boat.

I downloaded Sigil one week ago and decided to throw myself in at the deep end and convert 'Physics for Entertainment' by Yakov Perelman, a text that I had read and thoroughly enjoyed a couple of years ago in PDF format. I found that whilst an epub version was available from the same source, that it had been automatically converted and thus contained numerous OCR spelling errors, formatting issues and inconsistent image reproduction.

My first attempt was to reproduce exactly the format as originally displayed. I soon found that in many instances that this was futile and not at all helpful when viewing on a 5" screen. As a result, my version has been worked on at least twice before settling on what you see now.

I have enquired to the issue of copyright of this publication here. If you believe this not to be the case then please remove the epub link - best stay on the side of caution!

Original PDF and epub version downloaded from: http://www.archive.org/details/physi...ntert035428mbp
html editing done using Sigil v2.3
Image editing done using GIMP
left/right image justification used by copying coded used in Zelda_Pinwheel's Three Men in a Boat***
Obvious spelling mistakes picked out by running text through MS Word

*** - this may be very bad manners, or may be common code, I don't know Don't want to make enemies!

As a noob to book publishing, epub format, html, copyright law, bad spelling, poor English etc., etc., I more than welcome comments and criticisms. Furthermore, I intend to work further on this project where necessary, especially if anyone has better versions of some of the damaged/missing images that I can incorporate into future document versions.

Therefore, for your pleasure, please find below a link to version 1 of 'Physics for Entertainment'. Please excuse the large file size - all images (~155) have been rescanned from the PDF version. Therefore, any missing or faulty images are as produced in the PDF version.

Enjoy,

Ade
x

A reviewer for archive.org states:
"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 Poincaré 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."
----

Edit: v2 Fixed a dozen or so pictures that were missing/incomplete. Few typos fixed. Number of downloads of version 1 = 45.

[zelda_pinwheel]

hello ade, thanks so much for this book, it looks fascinating. i've downloaded it and can't wait to read it.

as for copying my code... i'm honoured you felt it was worth copying, but i am not sure it can be considered "mine" ; i've learned most of what i know by studying other people's code and i still like to take a look just to see how other people do things. it's an excellent way to improve your own coding skills. three men in particular owes a lot to many other people who helped me hammer out particularly tricky bits, most notably jellby, whose code i highly recommend you take a closer look at (he's uploaded quite a lot of amazing epub books here) ; jellby is the epub king.

now that you've discovered the joys of epub and code and sigil (brilliant editor, isn't it ?), i hope you'll continue to share your epub creations with us. don't hesitate to ask if you've got any questions ; we've got quite a lot of epub experts around here and they are all really friendly and helpful.

[ade_mcc]

Oops, think I've messed up already in terms of images appearing central on the laptop epub viewers, but not working on the PRS-300....
I'll update all the relevant images with some class= "centre" type codes and upload v2 in the morning.
Looking through, I seem to have some other odd looking code in there too. Wondering if its a relic from the initial conversion or something that I or Sigil has done??
Ps, thanks Zelda for the kind words, I'll certainly be sticking around!

[ade_mcc]

Edit: v2: Fixed a dozen or so pictures that were missing/incomplete. Few typos fixed.
I'd like to go through in over the next couple of weeks and completely redo the formatting as in remove a load of the blank lines and add italics in quite a few places as per the original text. Still work to do, but at least people can read it and make sense of it all without having to guess what the missing pictures were.
I'm still not entirely sure that my pictures are properly central, on a sony at least anyway ... any suggestions appreciated!

[beranger]

Excellent book, thank you!

I have replaced the cover with a larger one, which now is centered and self-scaling.

I've deleted 2 empty entries in the TOC.

I've attached the repackaged book.

Now, a question: any idea about a second volume?

While a kid, I've read a Romanian translation of the 17th edition (1965), which included what we have here as Volume I, but also had a much more consistent Volume II. I was searching for the Hottabych bird, but it's missing, as it's in Volume II.

Anyway, a great book.

[ade_mcc]

Good work beranger, the cover did need sorting out and I didn't realise that there were missing items in the TOC - good spot!
In regards to Volume 2, whilst copies are available on-line in DJVU format, I cannot validate the copyright freeness as I haven't found a version via archive.org or similar site.
However, if anyone can point me in the right direction, then that would be magic!

[beranger]

...because it was more advanced than Volume 1.

A tiny excerpt, Hottabych's Insatiable Birdie, see here.

[44reader]

Thanks for the book, ade_mcc.

Quality Check plugin reckons:

Physics For Entertainment / Perelman, Yakov
Unused image file: OEBPS/Images/151.jpg
Unused image file: OEBPS/Images/119.jpg
Unused image file: OEBPS/Images/127.jpg
Unused image file: OEBPS/Images/136.jpg