Physics for Entertainment was written by Yakov Perelman in the 1920’s (in Russian) and updated periodically through the 1930’s. There are actually two parts to it, but Volume 1 is long out-of-print (though findable online — more on that later). The book I have is a 1975 translation of Volume 2. The book is a series of a few hundred examples, no more than one or two pages each, asking a question that illustrates some idea in basic physics.

It’s neat to see what has and hasn’t changed in the last century or so. Many of the examples he uses seem to be straight out of a modern high school physics textbook, while others were totally new to me. And some of the answers to the questions he poses seem obvious, but others made me stop and think. The diagram to the right shows a design for a fountain with no pump — it took me a while to get why it works. (For an easier-to-build variant, click here.) Later in the book, he explains the physics of that drinking bird toy.

-- https://blog.xkcd.com/2009/10/02/physics-for-entertainment/