MPJ

Let me start this story with remarkable opening of the Michael D. Gordin's book named "The Pseudoscience Wars". The full quote is this: "No one in the history of the world has ever self-identified as a pseudoscientist. There is no person who wakes up in the morning and thinks to himself - I’ll just head into my pseudolaboratory and perform some pseudoexperiments to try to confirm my pseudotheories with pseudofacts". And this is the ultimate truth - there is no pseudoscience. It's not the real thing. You can, with more or less enthusiasm, add adjective "pseudo" to anything you like and get yourself the bad or opposite meaning of the original word. But in the world we are currently living in and with, for example, TV shows like " Ancient Aliens " being vastly popular than attending lectures or reading published scientific papers by professional archaeologists and historians, pseudo combined with science are now recognized word in almost

Do you like stories or movies with dystopian premise in the background? I do. It's simple. They feel extremely real and believable and reflect the very possible future of nowadays societies throughout the world. In some of those worldwide cultures this is reality now. Just check the news feed from the middle east or glimpse couple of images from devastated cities ruled by unknown people with covered faces and guns in their arms and you will understand what I am trying to say. Anyway, generally and even though I maintain post-apocalyptic thread on the blog, I don't really like all those stories with zombies or vampires or pandemic virus strains capable of turning the entire human race into horror. They don't seem plausible to me for many reasons I tried to explain before*. However, believable dystopia is another thing entirely and the story that perfectly represents it on multiple levels is Dan Haight's "Pac Fish" series with first book I recently read, called

You probably heard that matter is pretty much an empty space. It's true. Everything is made of tiny particles with nucleus in their centers and cloud of electrons orbiting around. If we take Hydrogen (H) for example - the smallest atom with just one proton in nucleus orbiting by just one electron and if we scale the proton to be the basketball size, the orbit of the electron in diameter would be something about 15km. Both, nucleus and electrons are electromagnetically charged, keeping everything in stable equilibrium and also inside nucleus two more fundamental forces - strong and week nuclear interactions are keeping all the matter and energy in line. However, the smallest atom in the Universe is not the smallest, standalone system we know of. According to standard model, all atoms and complex molecules found in nature or artificially produced are made of fundamental particles. Something we cannot cut into smaller pieces. Electron is one of them. But there are more. So far, as far

I probably mentioned before that I love reading and watching true Sci-Fi stories. The ones that have legacy in old Jules Verne fiction. The ones that predict the future and might be real some day. The red planet is no exception - when I see a title with "Mars" in it, I eagerly read the teaser, secretly hoping for a two hours of entertainment if it is a motion picture or two days if it is a book. Right at this moment, I am holding "The Martian" by Andy Weir*, the novel I was waiting to come into book shops for months. Especially when it was announced that Ridley Scott is taking the director's chair for the upcoming movie, later this year. This month, the crew should be located within one of the only places on Earth that resembles Mars perfectly. "Wadi Rum", a valley in southern Jordan, also known as "The Valley of the Moon" is currently a home for many trailers, including the one occupied by Matt Damon, who's playing Mark Watney, the main

If I am going to give a thought or two about ancient Atlantis, its mysterious people and all the conspiracy theories behind it, there is no doubt that I'll first think of the origin of the story. Classical Greece and Plato. One of the most famous scholars from BC. In his own time, Plato was definitely the top Greek philosopher from ancient Athens, who lived in fourth century before Christ and dedicated his entire scholarly life to philosophical research and development of modern society and politics. The method he used in his publications were dialogues, very popular way of expressing scientific thoughts at the time. Plato's dialogues, in which he never took the role as one of participants, were often the front story accompanied with narration, but in some of them he even excluded narrator and presented his work in pure novel-style with his characters carrying the story all the way. In regards of today's title, two dialogues are especially interested - Timaeus and Cri

In wide variety of entire expanse of science fiction genre, Martians are inevitable players. Even the most popular "Little Green Men" phrase from the early comic books, at the beginning referred to the aliens from Mars. However, this year, when it comes to motion pictures, two great master pieces will come to life and all without LGM in classical meaning of the word. There will be no aliens on Mars this time and all the Martians in upcoming movie and TV series will actually be humans. Moreover, the science in background is returning to the front door and accompanying stories will immediately be more valid, more plausible and more ... amazing. And this is what I like the most in good and old Verne's type of Sci-Fi. In short, give me more science and just a hint of fiction to spice the things up and I am happy. You probably already guessed, it is about filming amazing books I have already written about on the blog - "The Martian" by Andy Weir and "The

Do you ever wonder why we work like we work? Why working time lasts those eight hours and why takes the best part of the day? Who made it this way? And why? It all started with industrial revolution in early 19th century which culminated into real nightmare for most of workers, especially in large factories, where long working hours were mandatory and kept people outside their homes all day long. The working day was 10 to 16 hours, six days a week and not only for adults. Use of children was cheap and preferable. Deaths and illnesses from exhaustion were common and it was cruel and inhuman. Eventually, the nightmare spread from workers toward capitalists as well, in form of rise of social movement with Robert Owen's famous slogan " Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest ". Well, today, almost two centuries later, we now live, more or less, in Owen's vision, work around eight hours per day and enjoy our lives during the work or after. Or bot

Have you ever felt (medically or ... some other way) sick and tried to find all the symptoms online? Desperately searching to find what's wrong with you and to catch the disease by its name and to seek for the ultimate cure on the net? If you did, don't worry, you are not alone. Internet is the smartest thing ever invented so its only logical to check your smartphone every time you need and everything will be fine. Or it seems... Well... Sometimes what you find online is too vague or written with too scholar words.. Other times it looks like you have symptoms of multiple diseases. Sometimes the cure you found online can only be bought on the other side of the planet. And in most cases not in regular or even legal pharmacies... What to do? Well, don't worry, there is a way out. Do what you did before the internet. Make the appointment with your doctor and if he or she is your good friend you will get out with the ultimate cure for every single disease out there. Th

Couple of weeks ago, we went out for usual supermarket shopping. The routine that everybody loves and what we people from big cities, from the time when first mall was invented, consider as a sort of entertainment. Thankfully we have one big supermarket just close by so that rainy day we stopped by again for the umpteenth time. I left my son in the toys department and checked my wife at the other part of the store, and found her pretty happy and busy with browsing for, well something, probably important we ran out from our home supplies. I didn't know what else to do so I decided to check couple of book shelves they like to call 'Bookshop and Entertainment'. Genesis, the first book of Moses Well, I surly don't have to describe in details what I have seen in there. The majority of book covers were designed with pastel colors, pretty girls and tender flowers of all sorts. Just for fun, I randomly opened one of the novels and read something like this " Her lip

"Summertime and the livin' is easy..." sang Ella Fitzgerald back in 1957 with tremendous help of one of the kind crispy voice of legendary Louis Armstrong. Even though the most famous lullaby ever, written by Ira and George Gershwin for the "Porgy and Bess" opera from the thirties of 20th century, is not really about the hottest season and happiness per se, one thing is for sure - whatever you do, summertime is definitely the period of year when everything is smooth and nothing dramatic is happening.. At least nothing intentionally. Pure R&R. Even the work hours are passing by somehow easy and without big turbulence. Humphrey Bogart in 'The Maltese Falcon'* As for me, ever since I decided to go low with my social online life, after just couple of weeks I noticed positive change in my daily routine. The feeling was almost like solving addiction of some kind and even comparable to the past when I said definite goodbye to cigarettes after leavin

I am now sure that I made a mistake. Due to many professional challenges and lack of free time several years ago I decided to watch “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels & Demons” instead of reading the books. I have no regrets though as the movies and Tom Hanks, being one of my favorite actors, in a leading role behind Robert Langdon’s brilliant mind, were perfect as well as the script and directing. However, with probably few exceptions, not even the best film out there can replace the book it was based on. Everybody knows that, so this time I didn't let myself to continue with excuses and bought remaining two "Robert Langdon" books, “The Lost Symbol” and new novel premiered just couple of months ago by the intriguing name “Inferno”. This vacation I read them both in a row. After last page I hate myself even more for not reading first two books in the first place. Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon Nevertheless, I feel that I need to say something about Dan Brown’s bril