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Astronomy for Entertainment
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Astronomy for Entertainment
By Yakov Perelman
Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow | 1958 | ISBN -N/A | 194 pages | DJVU/PDF | 2.9/12.2mb
PDF conversion is mine.
Everyday happenings in the sky are the contents of this book, free from professional terminology with easy reading. Its purpose is to initiate the reader into the basic facts of astronomy. Ordinary facts with which you may be acquainted are couched here in unexpected paradoxes, or slanted from an odd and unexpected angle solely to excite the imagination and quicken your interest. The daily aspect of the science of the skies, its beginnings, not later findings that mainly form the contents of Astronomy for Entertainment. The purpose of the book is to initiate the reader into the basic facts of astronomy. Ordinary facts with which you may be acquainted are couched here in unexpected paradoxes, or slanted from an odd and unexpected angle. The theme is, as far as possible, free from terminology and technical paraphernalia that so often make the reader shy of books on astronomy.
Books on popular science are often rebuked for not being sufficiently serious. In a way the rebuke is just, and support for it can be found (if one has in mind the exact natural sciences) in the tendency to avoid calculations in any shape or form. And yet the reader can really master his subject only by learing how to reckon, even though in a rudimentary fashion. Hence, both in Astronomy for Entertainment and in other books of this series, the aurhor has not attempted to avoid the simplest of calculations. True, he has taken care to present them in an easy form, well within the reach of all who have studied mathematics at school. It is his conviction that these exercises help not only retain the knowledge acquired; they are also a useful introduction to more serious reading.
This book contains chapters relating to the Earth, the Moon, planets, stars and gravitation. The author has concentated in the main on materials not usually discussed in works of this nature. Subjects omitted in the present book, will, he hopes, be treated in a second volume. The book, it should be said, makes no attempt to analyze in detail the rich content of modern astronomy.
Unfortunately Y. Perelman never wrote the continuation he had planned for this book, as untimely death in warbound Leningrad in 1942 interruped his labours.
CONTENTS
Preface . . .
Chapter One - THE EARTH, ITS SHAPE AND MOTIONS
Chapter Two - THE MOON AND ITS MOTIONS
Chapter Three - THE PLANETS
Chapter Four - THE STARS
Chapter Five - GRAVITATION
