Soviet kids' book about robots

Roman sez, "When I was a kid in the USSR, my parents got me a fun comic book about how robots work. It's a translation of a book by a french roboticist, and it's remarkably accurate even now (the first chapter describes a Roomba). Recently, I found it again, scanned it in, and wrote a translation into english. After getting permission from the author, I put it up online, so enjoy." Link (Thanks, Roman!)

• [Master of Space and Time]

  Jean-Pierre PETIT is a Hero for UFO addicted in France for 30 years now.
  He is a freak for a lot of people too !

  He has very interested theories and he is very multifaceted. His comics are very interesting and easy to understand for everyone.

  In the 80′s, here:
  http://www.masterofspaceandtime.org/masterofspaceandtime/2008/01/antigravit-et-h.html

  English Wiki page:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Petit

• [Atvaark]

  The author’s name is Jean-Pierre Petit and he’s not a roboticist, he’s primarily a specialist in magnetohydrodynamics, though he’s also skilled in astrophysics and in topology (mathematics). He’s the author of many science-oriented comics he makes available for free on the internet.

  He is also known for taking very controversial positions, especially on UFOs and on 9/11. For this reason and for advancing many hypotheses without serious scientific backup, he is marginalized by the French scientific community.

  Nevertheless, if not his scientific claims, at least his comics are very valuable. They make very complicated topics understandable by most people, especially topology and economy. The one on economy is a must-read for people who want an introduction to the subject.

  They’re all available for free, along with many translations, on http://www.savoir-sans-frontieres.com/

• [archcvd]

  /panic attack

  GAH!

  I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THIS BOOK FOR YEARS!!!

  I went to a Francophone school when I was younger and they had this book in the library in its French form, and I would take it out every week just to draw the little robots over and over in my sketchbooks…

  THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

• [proto]

  Excellent! A friend gave me “The Spondyloscope” ages ago when I hurt my back — invaluable! Thanks, for reminding me of Petit’s work, and for pointing out the link to the site.

• [Elapsv]

  It turned out that I missed this book completely when I was child (though it doesn’t seems like the only thing I missed, I would definitely remember having seen it). And it is even stranger, because every outstanding book in Soviet Union used to be a subject of interest of many people. I mean, you can still see a lot of the same titles (and the same editions) in book-cases all over Russia. Different cities, different people, but all the same books. People were really proud of having good books. Nowadays there’s a different situation. Market economy made all the books equal and the Internet made lots of things much more accessible.

• [Master of Space and Time]

  To Benediktus,

  It’s not an excentric opinion to believe in UFO !

  He said he learnt a lot about magnetohydrodynamics thanks to UMMO letters, and accomplished a lot of thing because of that !

  You guys can have your opinion about UFO but it’s not because that he is marginalized by the French scientific community that he is wrong

  Keep an open mind

  Time will tell us the truth

  He would have been burned during the middle ages !

• [kirkjerk]

  Weird, I had this book in English when I was a kid! I probably got it at the old Boston Computer Museum…

• [AceJohnny]

  I have to +1 the awesomeness of Mr Petit’s “Anselme Lanturlu” albums, which are marvels of vulgarisation. I was put off at first by the simplicity of the drawings, but don’t be!
  I hold “The Black Hole” in my personal pantheon for making me understand space-time curvature (and the most extreme example, black holes).
  I strongly urge you to check out his other books, available translated at Savoir Sans Frontieres. Scroll down a bit; yes, the site layout pretty much sucks.

  As others have pointed out, the author also holds some excentric opinions such as the existence of UFOs, which has pretty much discredited him in the scientific community. It doesn’t diminish the quality of his vulgarisation, though.

• [mkultra]

  You know, not to be a nit-picker or anything, but this is less a “Soviet kids’ book about Russia” than it is a “Soviet kids’ book about Robots”.

  Just sayin’.

• [benediktus]

  i really enjoyed “wovon roboter traeumen” (which is this book in german) of mr. petit. but all of his anselm(e)/archibald-books are great. i also recommend to follow the link from ACEJOHNNY (#7)!

  but gee, i don’t think the description “soviet kids book” is appropriate, since mr. petit is french and many of his books has been translated in many languages.

• [Cory Doctorow]

  Thanks, MKUltra!