Yakov Isidorovich Perelman was a Russian Empire and Soviet science writer and author of many popular science books, including Physics Can Be Fun and Mathematics Can Be Fun.
Yakov Perelman around 1910.
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was a Russian and Soviet rocket scientist who pioneered astronautics. Along with Hermann Oberth and Robert H. Goddard, he is one of the pioneers of space flight and the founding father of modern rocketry and astronautics. His works later inspired Wernher von Braun and leading Soviet rocket engineers Sergei Korolev and Valentin Glushko, who contributed to the success of the Soviet space program.
Tsiolkovsky spent most of his life in a log house on the outskirts of Kaluga, about 200 km (120 mi) southwest of Moscow. A recluse by nature, his unusual habits made him seem bizarre to his fellow townsfolk.
Portrait, 1924
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky with his steel dirigibles in his garden, 1913
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in 1934
The cover of the book The Will of the Universe: The Unknown Intelligence by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, 1928, considered to be a work of Cosmist philosophy