In an earlier post we have seen a wonderful book on special relativity titled Relativity and Man by V. Smilga. In that post, it was pointed out another book by this wonderful author titled In theSearch for Beauty, which has a very artful cover. I had first seen this book on the wonderful Soviet Books blog.
We were in process of searching this beauty, literally and figuratively both (see my and s.sanjay’s comments in Relativity and Man post), until we got this message from Boris Smilga the grandson of V. Smilga!
Hello. I have stumbled upon this excellent site somewhat accidentally, and was happy to find granddad’s footprints, so to say, on Indian soil. As the keeper of his estate, I happen to have the English edition of “In the Search for Beauty”, and, since you are interested in it, I have scanned it for the common good. You’ll find the file at https://dpworks.net/files/search-for-beauty.djvu (size≈23MB at 300 dpi, md5=718dd7f03a78325e82f0527854a9a394); please contact me if you have any trouble downloading it.
This is something that has really made me happy. I cannot thank Boris enough for this. Thanks once again Boris!!
Now something about the book:
The book takes us on a epic journey on the origins of non-Euclidean geometry based on the parallel lines postulate and its culmination in General theory of relativity of Einstein. It starts with era of Greek geometers, Euclid and his fifth postulate. Also the mathematical genius of the poet, polymath Omar Khayyam is given. Then the pages turn to mathematical giants like Bolyai, Lobachevsky, Gauss and their contributions to the development of non-Euclidean geometry. Then we come to general relativity and the final chapter on Einstein. The book is illustrated with witty cartoons throughout. (I have started but not yet finished the book, so the synopsis is not complete or exhaustive, please feel free to add your own review!).
The book was translated from the Russian by George Yankovsky. The book was published by Mir Publishers in 1970.
All credits to Boris Smilga.
You can get the book here (Boris’ link) and here (filecloud) .
The book is now uploaded to archive.org
Djvu | OCR | 300 dpi| Covers | 175 pages (2-in-1 scan)| 23 MB
Password if needed: mirtitles
Magnet link/torrent links coming soon.
Facing Problems? See FAQs
Contents
1. Before Euclid – Prehistoric Times. 7
2. Euclid. 26
3. The Fifth Postulate. 57
4. The Age of Proofs. The Beginning. 81
5. Omar Khayyam. 92
6. The Age of Proofs. Continued. 129
7. Non-Euclidean Geometry. The Solution. 155
8. Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky. 198
9. Non-Euclidean Geometry. Some Illustrations. 230
10. New Ideas. Riemann. Non-contradictoriness. 246
11. An Unexpected Finale. The General Theory of Relativity. 269
12. Einstein 301
Mir Books 
Dear D,
may our tribe increase! it gives me great pleasure to see the reference to Smilga’s other book culminating into its scan and uploading. many thanks to Boris for the book. it is really a proud moment for the site to have a contribution from the author’s family.
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Damitr,
Created single page cleaned pdf file with much less size.
( Extracted tifs from djvu using DjvuLibre, Post processed using scantailor )
I dont have OCR,so couldnt do it . If any errors pls let know. In very few pages, few letters are smudged. Scanning issue looks like.
http://www.4shared.com/office/4vFrYiFx/In_the_Search_for_Beauty-_Smil.html
PS : Thanks Mr Boris Smilga !
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That’s really nice , Great effort!
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I have uploaded the book:
Geochemistry for Everyone
by Alexander.E.Fersman
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow | 1958 | ISBN:N/A | PDF | 451 pages | 29.7 mb
The magnet link is:
http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/8427884/Geochemistry_for_Everyone_%28gnv64%29
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You can also download it from here:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?r7g5gjo47fwjul1
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I have converted B,Smilga’s book to PDF with OCR.
Those of you who like PDF format can download it from:
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?yc9q29g76836yyp
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Good news Damitr!
I have found one book “This Chancy, Chancy, Chancy World” by L. Rastrigin— MIR Publishers (1984)
Thanks to gnv64 who uploaded book on internet
The link for the book is
http://filecloud.io/281u4etq
Please let me know if the link is not working
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The link is working fine siddarth and thanks for uploading it in another file hosting site since I also tried to download the torrent version but was in vain , no seeders where there!.
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I had uploaded it almost a year back! It was difficult to scan. I think there are 3 seeds still….
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Converted into a post https://mirtitles.org/2013/06/07/this-chancy-chancy-chancy-world-rastrigin/
D
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Hi! Just a quick update, in case you’re interested: my dad got World Scientific to publish a new edition of the book (with some corrections of the original translation’s errors). See https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/11102; it’s also being sold on Amazon.
Regards,
B. Smilga.
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Thanks for the update!
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Links not working. Please update.
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@Hitesh, The link has been updated. Please check.
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I am unable to down load symmetry by Smilga in pdf format. I also request to put the books in pdf format also as I am unable to open in other formats. I had a hard copy earlier which I enjoyed reading.I want to reread t it and request to upload in pdf format
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@d Suryanarayana, I got a hold of the pdf version. Will upload on the internet archive and update the links.
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Thank you very much
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@d suryanarayana, here is the link.
https://archive.org/details/InTheSearchForBeautySmilga
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