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In Soviet Union "Mir" was well-known for its translations of foreign scientific and technical literature. I never realized "Mir" published English translations

In Soviet Union "Mir" was well-known for its translations of foreign scientific and technical literature. I never realized "Mir" published English translations of Russian books too. In my (very one-sided and biased) opinion Soviet Union was a very provincial country immensely handicapped in its scientific and cultural life by being cut off from the world. (Although it might not look like that in 1960s when it was proudly going into space and testing atomic weapons.) But there existed good fundamental science and some original thinkers and authors worth translating and studying.

rramadass 7y ago
Mir publications (in English and other languages) were very popular in many countries of the world where they were affordable and available. It was one of the best things to come out of the Soviet era. They were excellent across the board. It is fashionable nowadays to badmouth everything "Soviet" but their focus on educating the masses in Science & Technology was farsighted. See my responses in this thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21346272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21346272 where i am exhorting people to bring them back into print :-) From the above same thread, link to the archive - https://archive.org/details/@mirtitles?&sort=-publicdate&page=1 https://archive.org/details/@mirtitles?&sort=-publicdate&pag...
- the-mitr 7y ago
  I am the maintainer/curator of the mirtitles blog. Thanks for the comment, we had thought of republishing also. Perhaps Little Mathematics Library comes to mind first due to the smaller number of pages. But it got stalled due to other commitments that I had. But we are surely looking in this direction as well.
  - rramadass 7y ago
    Thanks for responding and Appreciate all your hard work on this. This knowledge needs to be saved for posterity. Just thinking aloud, why not approach the Russian publishing houses (and maybe the Russian govt. itself?) to get behind this and fund it? Or maybe a tie-up with well-known technical book publishers like Oxford/Cambridge publishing (i myself am partial to Dover Publications) to start a line under "Mir Titles"? A few professors to edit out the obvious propaganda material and everything should be good for mass market. I sense a good business opportunity here :-)
jacobolus 7y ago
Many of the standard introductory Soviet textbooks at the high school / undergraduate level in math, physics, chemistry, etc. were excellent, better than the most common western textbooks. They also sold them cheaply around the world, and they become standard classics in many countries. I’m not sure how their more advanced textbooks stack up. But there were clearly a large number of world-class scientists and mathematicians there.
rq1 7y ago
Come on it’s not being biased but completely blind (I don’t want to get banned otherwise I’d use another word). Out of nowhere: Kantorovich, Kolmogorov, Smirnov, Markov, Chebychev, Chernoff, Sobolev, Egorov, Novikov, Galerkine, Levenstein, Alexandrov... etc. Some could cite physicists like Sakharov, Bronstein, Friedmann, Ginzburg... etc. Their approach to Variational Calculus was very unique back then ahead of their time. Speaking of... I forgot to mention Pontryagin! They messed a lot of stuff but not their academy, nor the mass education.
- dubya 7y ago
  I've just been reading "Love and Math" by Edward Frenkel, which I recommend for his view of modern mathematics. His take on Soviet science was that math and physics (and maybe other hard sciences) were mostly left outside of Communist party control, while things like literature, humanities, psychology, ... things where party officials might not hesitate to express an ill-formed opinion, were dormant or party-controlled nonsense during the Soviet era. Frenkel is a Soviet-born mathematician who left the country just before Glasnost, who was discriminated against for having a Jewish surname.
azepoi 7y ago
it published in several languages. http://leseditionsmir.free.fr/ http://leseditionsmir.free.fr/

rramadass 7y ago

Mir publications (in English and other languages) were very popular in many countries of the world where they were affordable and available. It was one of the best things to come out of the Soviet era. They were excellent across the board. It is fashionable nowadays to badmouth everything "Soviet" but their focus on educating the masses in Science & Technology was farsighted. See my responses in this thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21346272 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21346272 where i am exhorting people to bring them back into print :-) From the above same thread, link to the archive - https://archive.org/details/@mirtitles?&sort=-publicdate&page=1 https://archive.org/details/@mirtitles?&sort=-publicdate&pag...

the-mitr 7y ago
I am the maintainer/curator of the mirtitles blog. Thanks for the comment, we had thought of republishing also. Perhaps Little Mathematics Library comes to mind first due to the smaller number of pages. But it got stalled due to other commitments that I had. But we are surely looking in this direction as well.
- rramadass 7y ago
  Thanks for responding and Appreciate all your hard work on this. This knowledge needs to be saved for posterity. Just thinking aloud, why not approach the Russian publishing houses (and maybe the Russian govt. itself?) to get behind this and fund it? Or maybe a tie-up with well-known technical book publishers like Oxford/Cambridge publishing (i myself am partial to Dover Publications) to start a line under "Mir Titles"? A few professors to edit out the obvious propaganda material and everything should be good for mass market. I sense a good business opportunity here :-)

jacobolus 7y ago

Many of the standard introductory Soviet textbooks at the high school / undergraduate level in math, physics, chemistry, etc. were excellent, better than the most common western textbooks. They also sold them cheaply around the world, and they become standard classics in many countries. I’m not sure how their more advanced textbooks stack up. But there were clearly a large number of world-class scientists and mathematicians there.

rq1 7y ago

Come on it’s not being biased but completely blind (I don’t want to get banned otherwise I’d use another word). Out of nowhere: Kantorovich, Kolmogorov, Smirnov, Markov, Chebychev, Chernoff, Sobolev, Egorov, Novikov, Galerkine, Levenstein, Alexandrov... etc. Some could cite physicists like Sakharov, Bronstein, Friedmann, Ginzburg... etc. Their approach to Variational Calculus was very unique back then ahead of their time. Speaking of... I forgot to mention Pontryagin! They messed a lot of stuff but not their academy, nor the mass education.

dubya 7y ago
I've just been reading "Love and Math" by Edward Frenkel, which I recommend for his view of modern mathematics. His take on Soviet science was that math and physics (and maybe other hard sciences) were mostly left outside of Communist party control, while things like literature, humanities, psychology, ... things where party officials might not hesitate to express an ill-formed opinion, were dormant or party-controlled nonsense during the Soviet era. Frenkel is a Soviet-born mathematician who left the country just before Glasnost, who was discriminated against for having a Jewish surname.

azepoi 7y ago

it published in several languages. http://leseditionsmir.free.fr/ http://leseditionsmir.free.fr/