Interesting math.

This book by Jacob Perelman somehow bypassed me as a child, although I read his “Entertaining Physics” to the holes. In this book about mathematics, Yakov Perelman collected a large number of adventure and fantastic stories, in which mathematical puzzles are hidden. And then in the notes after each work, Jacob deciphers the mathematical essence of this story. If you have read Herbert Wells, Jules Verne, Vladimir Benedictov, you may have already encountered these works, but most likely could not appreciate the plausibility of the authors’ ideas.

Below are all parts of this collection in the format of "Title of the original work. Commentary title from Perelman. My comments on what all this is about.

1. On the bubble - a story by Kurd Lasswitz. Relativity of space and time. It's like the movie "Honey, I Slimmed the Children" 2. The Time Machine is an extract from the novel by Herbert Wells. Time as the fourth dimension. Just about space and time. 3. On a comet - from a novel by Jules Verne. Notes.
About the force of gravity and how to determine the weight and density of the comet. 4. Nansen's predecessor - a story by V. Olden. Living planetarium. About the motion of the planets and how it can be modeled:) 5. Universal Library - a story by K. Lasswitz. Literary machine. Combinatorics and probability. It's about the same as a bunch of monkeys knocking on a keyboard and accidentally writing "War and Peace." It is interesting to look at the successes of LLMs, which successfully generate coherent text:) 6. The Pyramid of Cheops and Its Mysteries – A Story by J. Perelman. Actions on approximate numbers. Debunking the approaches of the yellow press on the example of the yellow headlines about the Pyramid of Cheops:) 7. The Story of a Game: Wilg and Arens. Notes. About the game "spots" and how it appeared and why it initially led to a boom 8. The Strange Task for the Prize by Prof. G. Simon. Diophantus of Alexandria. On Solving Integer Equations 9. Numerical Anecdotes by Barry Pan. Just a fun set of tasks that you can solve and test yourself. 10. Cunning solution of a complicated problem - V.G. Benediktov. Benediktov's amusing arithmetic. An interesting collection of Benediktov and as an example of a problem about the sale of chicken eggs 11. Upstairs from a novel by Jules Verne. Is it possible to move the poles of the Earth?. On the rotation of the Earth around its axis and its pole 12. Scooter underground railway - A. Rodnykh. A fairytale road. Ala the prototype of the Hyperloop, which recently closed, only more enchanting:)

Finally, I will quote Yakov Perelman about this collection.

In search of means to revive the interest in mathematics in wide circles, it occurred to me to collect a number of works treating mathematical themes in fictional or semi-fiction form, and to offer them to the reader with appropriate comments. The number of such works is, of course, very limited. This explains the modest size of this collection. However, the mathematical topics covered in it are still quite diverse: the relativity of space and time, the four-dimensional world, calculations from the field of celestial mechanics, questions of mathematical geography, combinatorics and giant numbers, the application of mathematical analysis to games, indefinite analysis, equations. It is to be hoped that this small collection will encourage other readers to think more seriously and will encourage systematic acquaintance with a particular branch of mathematics. This collection is the first known experience of this kind.

#Math #PopularScience #Physics