Mir Books

Yakov Perelman – Fun with Maths and Physics

Posted on May 23, 2012 by damitr

We have talked about Yakov Perelman in detail in an earlier post. We now see one of the wonderful works of him titled Fun with Maths and Physics.

This particular edition was compiled by I. I. Prusakov and was translated from the Russian by Alexander Repyev. Mir Publishers first published this book in 1984 and second printing was done in 1988. The artists involved with this project were:

Cover: I. Kravtsov, V. Stulikov
Artistic Book Design: I. Kabakov, V. Keidan, I. Kravtsov, D. Lion, S. Mukhin, Yu. Perevezentsev, L. Saksonov, A. Sokolov, V. Stulikov, R. Varshamov, Yu. Vashchenko

Update: 2025 July 26

A new, extremely hi-res/clean scan added.

You can get it here and here

You can get the book here

here and here

Update: Added Internet Archive Link | 07 December 2015

All credits to the original uploader for the 1984 print and thanks to gnv64 for the 1988 print.

Posted in books, mathematics, mir books, mir publishers, physics, science | Tagged perelman, popular science | 9 Comments

Universal Physical Constants

Posted on May 23, 2012 by damitr

In this post we will see a wonderful little book titled Universal Physical Constants by O. P. Spiridonov.This is a book that deals with history of science in a wonderful way. There are six stories to be told about the constants themselves and the way we found their values. The constants are:

Gravitational Constant
Boltzmann Constant and Avagadro’s Number
Mass and Charge of electron
Speed of Light
Planck’s constant
Masses of neutron, proton and other elementary particles

From the back cover:

The stern academical title of the book is somewhat misguiding tor this is, in fact, a fresh and exciting account of physics, tracing its experimental and conceptual development from the ancient Greeks up to the present day. In thorough studies and heated scientific controversies, it was through the endeavours of many remarkable men that the profound physical significance of the universal physical constants was revealed, sometimes with a complete revision of old views and formation of new physical disciplines. O. P. Spiridonov’s Universal Physical Constants appears to be the first book, both in the USSR and abroad, to be specifically concerned with a systematic discussion of the constants. A “case history” is given for each of them. In telling the story, the author places strong emphasis on logical continuity and the lucidity of his style is never achieved at the expense of scientific strictness.

The book was translated from Russian by Yevgeni Strelchenko and was first published by Mir in 1986.

You can get the book here. and here

Update: Posted link to Internet Archive 03 December 2015

Update: Posted a cleaned new copy on IA August 30, 2020

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Posted in astronomy, books, chemistry, history, mir books, mir publishers, physics, science, soviet | Tagged physical constants | 21 Comments

Misha!

Posted on April 30, 2012 by damitr

Many of us have pleasant and unforgettable memories of reading Misha – The Chidlren’s Illustrated Monthly. And suddenly all of them seem to have disappeared. They are no where to be found.

I have found two issues of Misha while browsing the internet. They are:

Update 16 August 2020 added more links

1983, 3rd Issue

1985 9th Issue

and here

1986 10th Issue

and here

1987, 9th Issue

and here

and here

and here

and here

and here

and here

and here

and here

and here

All credits and a ton of thanks to the original uploader!

Hope that we have the complete issues of Misha some time soon!

Password: mirtitles

Posted in books, soviet | Tagged art, chidlren's, colour, drawings, magazine, misha, soviet | 28 Comments

Updates…

Posted on April 18, 2012 by damitr

Have reloaded a better version of Questions and Answers in School Physics by Lev Tarasov and Aldina Tarasova. This is a better cleaned, OCRed, bookmarked (~ 14 MB).

Password, if needed: mirtitles

Posted in books | Tagged school physics | 11 Comments

Updates…

Posted on April 18, 2012 by damitr

The link for All About The Telescope has been updated. This is a major revision from the earlier link, in terms of quality. The download size is about ~118 MB.

Update 2: gnv64 has made a (much) smaller version of the above file ~ 7 MB. Check out the new link for that.

Continue reading →

Posted in astronomy, books, progress publishers | Tagged astronomy, children, telescope | Leave a comment

Little Mathematics Library – Images of Geometric Solids

Posted on April 18, 2012 by damitr

We now come to another title in the Little Mathematics Library, this one is titled Images of Geometric Solids by N. M. Beskin

Drawing a plane figure is not geometrically difficult because the image drawn is either an exact copy of the original or a similar figure, e.g. the drawing of a circle looks like the original circle. Drawing geometric solids is quite a different matter. Unfortunately, there are no “spatial pencils” which can trace an object in the air. Such a pencil would “draw” a cube by tracing along its edges. Hence, we have to sketch a cube on paper with an ordinary pencil. A plane image will never be an exact copy of a solid and, therefore, a certain routine ought to be followed in drawing a solid that would create an image of the original in the best way.

What is the book about. Descriptive geometry embraces so
many methods that even a brief account would make up a rather thick volume. Therefore, we shall discuss just one of these methods, so as to enable the reader to make stereometric drawings and solve the respective problems…

This book presents a geometric theory of constructing
stereometric drawings. Having mastered this theory, a reader will be able to make the drawings himself rather than have to stick to the few sample ones.

The first chapter presents the theory, the second one is devoted
to its applications (drawing of a cube, a cone, a cylinder, etc.),
and the third one describes a method of plotting the points of an
image if their coordinates are known.

It is these strategies and routine that this book discusses. Though many things are possible with modern computer programs, but the logic may not be known to people who are using them.

The book was translated from the Russian by Valery Barvashov and was first published by Mir in 1985. All credits to the original uploader.

Update 26 May 2018

The Internet Archive link.

and here

Continue reading →

Posted in books, little mathematics library, mathematics, mir books, mir publishers | Tagged architecture, arts, descriptive geometry, drawing, ellipse, geometric solids, illustration, mathematics, Pohlke-Schwartz theorem, solid images | 7 Comments

Little Mathematics Library – Differentiation Explained

Posted on April 18, 2012 by damitr

We begin with the Little Mathematics Library series once again, after a long break. We first see the book titled Differentiation Explained by V. G. Boltyansky (Boltyanskii).

The author in the Preface says:

High school students, especially those interested in mathematics, physics and engineering, often ask, ‘What is “higher” mathematics?’ Sometimes they discuss this and similar questions at mathematics clubs at schools.

In this book I have tried to explain, in a way a high school pupil would understand, certain concepts of higher mathematics such as the derivative, differential equation, the number e, and natural logarithm (pupils are more apt to be aware of and interested in the latter two concepts). Wherever possible, I have tried to illustrate the concepts with problems taken from physics. In addition, I have tried to show that the concepts of “higher mathematics” are mathematical reflections of actual processes, that mathematics and life are connected, not separated, and that mathematics is a growing, not an unchanging, completed science. Not all proofs and arguments are presented with complete mathematical rigour. Some arguments are presented for illustration. This method seems to me more appropriate for a general book.

The book can be used by mathematics and physics clubs at school. Part of the material is taken from lectures the author gave at the request of the advisers of school mathematics clubs at the Moscow State University.

The book was translated from Russian by M. Samokhvalov and was first published by Mir in 1977. All credits to the original uploader.

The Internet Archive Link

and here

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Posted in books, little mathematics library, mathematics, mir books, mir publishers, physics, science | Tagged applications, derivative, differentiation, extremas, harmonic oscillations, logarithms, tangents, velocity | 5 Comments

Higher Maths for Beginners – Zeldovich, Yaglom

Posted on April 17, 2012 by damitr

The book in this post is one of the best introductory books for Higher Mathematics and it has been written by two exceptionally talented people, namely, Yakov B. Zeldovich and Issak M. Yaglom. Just visit the wikipedia pages to see their achievements. If only all the outstanding people in their fields wrote books at popular level, we would be living in a different world. The complete title of the book reads Higher Maths for Beginners (Mostly Engineers and Scientists).

This book is a joint attempt of a physicist and a mathematician to write an entirely new type of book for future scientists and engineers.

…

The purpose of this book is to enable the future physicist (chemist, engineer etc.) to use higher mathematics in his or her work by mastering its methods without going into full logical substantiation of them, allowing the student to view mathematics as a section of natural sciences and to solve as many concrete problems as possible.

This book is intended for beginners, that is, for high-school students in the upper grades, students of trade schools and vocational schools, and students in the first years of college. We also have in mind anyone who by himself wishes to become better acquainted with higher mathematics, say, people who finished school some years ago

The book was translated from the Russian by Eugene Yankovsky and was first published by Mir in 1987.

You can get the book here and here.

All credits to the original uploader.

Update: Posted Internet Archive Link 03 December 2015

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Posted in books, mathematics, mir books, mir publishers, physics, science | Tagged applications, Derivatives, dirac, engineering, functions, graphs, integration | 37 Comments

Did You Say Mathematics?

Posted on April 16, 2012 by damitr

We have seen one book by Yakov Khurgin previously in the Science for Everyone series named Yes, No Or Maybe . Now we come to another book by him with the title Did You Say Mathematics?

The back cover of the book says about the author:

Dr. Yakov Khurgin is professor of mathematics at the Chair of Applied Mathematics at the Gubkin Institute of the Petrolium and Gas Industry. He has written over a hundred scientific papers in pure and applied mathematics and has been particularly productive in the fields of radioengineering, radiophysics, cybernetics, neurophysiology and psychiatry. At the present time, Professor Khurgin heads the laboratory of applied mathematics. He is also a member of the USSR National Committee of Automatic Control.

His extensive knowledge and wide range of activities have helped to make his popular-science book a great success.

And the book itself is described by the author in a section titled One last word to the reader:

In the chapters that follow I will attempt to tell the story of mathematics and weave into an integral whole the various discussions I have had with my non-mathematical friends.

This will be a story of mathematics in popular language so that the non-mathematician will see what it is all about. This is not a course in mathematics but merely a series of sketches concerning ideas and
methods. There will be no proofs to carry out and no need for paper and pencil. What I want to do is sketch a picture of the development of mathematics and show what mathematicians are presently engaged
in—to some extent.

This book is true indeed a popular exposition of many concepts in mathematics. The book was translated from the Russian by George Yankovsky and was first published by Mir in 1974 and republished in 1984. Thanks to gnv64 for this one!

The Internet Archive Link

and here

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