Entertaining Physics

Yakov Perelman

Can we hold a shooting bullet in our hands? Why can't a perpetual motion engine be made? How do mirages arise? Who invented the greenhouse for spaceships? The answers to these and many other interesting questions can be found by reading this book. Entertaining Physics was written almost a quarter of a century ago, and since then, the author has continually updated and added material. The book has been reprinted seventeen times in Russian and translated into several foreign languages. The success of Entertaining Physics is due to the author's rare genius, who was able to observe and select from life the ordinary and familiar facts and phenomena that, at the same time, have a profound physical significance. This book is not considered a textbook or a practical one; rather, its purpose is to help the broadest readership perceive and understand the influence of physical laws on those processes and phenomena that we encounter daily, but which we neglect without contemplating.