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Uranium Bike Tour

After the Second World War, another tide of the arms race slowly but surely began to develop in the world. With the first nuclear power plant built in Obninsk back in 1954 in the former Soviet Union, it became clear that atomic weapons and the nuclear industry overall would mark the second half of the twentieth century. Today, about 80 years after the first nuclear reactor ever built, "Chicago Pile-1", the current numbers for the commercial use of nuclear power indicate that 50 countries operate about 220 research reactors, with as many more operating power plants in the majority of these countries. The military numbers are expected to be even higher, and the fact is that nuclear submarines and ships can be equipped with multiple nuclear reactors on board. Some of the aircraft carriers can have up to eight of them.

The AI representation of cyclists on the 'Uranium Bike Tour' :-)

Of course, all those nuclear reactors require nuclear fuel to operate. In most cases, it is the enriched uranium (U-235) isotope produced from the uranium concentrate powder called yellowcake, which is an intermediate step in the processing of the uranium ore and usually produced directly in the mines. During the 1960s, world demand for uranium ore skyrocketed, and many countries joined the ride. Serbia was no exception. The only deposits of uranium-oxide-rich ore in Serbia were found near the small town of Kalna, some 50 km east of my current place of residence, and in a short period of time, shrouded in secrecy, the uranium mine operated fully and produced a respectable amount of yellowcake (UO₂) and even a significant amount of metal uranium as well. **

In the beginning, even the miners believed they were digging ore for the production of copper and gold. Only three people in the mine knew the truth. After four years of production, the mine was closed, the pit buried, and the operation moved to a more profitable location. The old mine is still there, inaccessible as it is, and the old buildings are still standing but locked and sealed. The soil and aerial environment are tested regularly, and even though the radioactivity is slightly above normal and most likely deadly deep in the ground, on the surface the entire area is a safe environment to live in. However, many believe that the story of the site is not over and that more ore veins are still waiting to be found.

The 'Uranium Bike Tour' path and elevation

In the meantime, due to the expansion of tourism in the Balkan Mountains, recently the road has been rebuilt, and it is now perfect for cycling. The local cyclists, both professional and amateur, and those, like my son and me, who are considered to be enthusiasts, love the path for testing the limits, entertainment, and health. Last weekend we spent more than six hours on our wheels enjoying a pretty hard and elevated track, which is 58 km long and more than 400 meters elevated from the starting point and the highest point on the way. We call it the "Uranium Bike Tour", and it's something we started to do last year. In the image above, there are both trajectory and elevation lines. It starts from the city of Niš, passes through the small town of Svrljig, goes through several villages on the way, and crosses the phenomenal landscapes almost the entire way.

The video below is made out of a GPX file of the entire track, created by Fabien Girardin's amazing tool from his Rumbo* website. As for the track itself, and to be completely honest, we didn't go all the way this time because we rode our heavy mountain bikes with fat tires, which are not the best option for this kind of trail, but when we turned off the asphalt to get to this weekend's (family) destination, the dirt road ride was almost effortless.


The 'Uranium Bike Tour' GPX video illustration*

Geographically lying in the heart of the Balkan Peninsula, just 27 kilometers away from Niš, the small town of Svrljig, which we passed three hours after departure, is acting as the capital of a relatively small Serbian land surrounded by exactly 38 villages. The entire complex of its southern mountain range is called 'Svrljig Mountains', and the track is following the path just next to them. The highest peak, Zeleni vrh, has an elevation of 1,334 meters above sea level and was the impressive site just next to the road on the 40th kilometer of the tour.

In just half a century, the human population of the area has more than halved, with more and more villages containing more empty houses and those in which more people die than are born. Rural environments in this part of the world are more or less the same, and while cities are becoming larger and larger, the economics and agricultural fate of small villages are grimmer by the year. To me, it's far away from elementary logic, and I only hope this trend will change in the future.

The landscape from the village of Vrelo, near Svrljig

The same goes for the final destination of the tour, the once small town of Kalna, which flourished in those half a decades when the mine was active and where 800 miners lived in prosperous mining settlements. It is now almost a ghost town with nothing but memories of the good times 60 years ago. The last remaining mine worker in Kalna, who was a locksmith in the mine at the time, Hranislav Grujić, and who is now in his late 80s, remembers the good times: "When we pass the tavern, the waiters laugh: "Here are the miners; it's going to be a good day!"

But there were incidents as well; after all, working with the yellowcake is not the safest job in the world. He remembered the time he was in contact with the ore: "They bathed me with a hose in a special chamber, and they set fire to all of my clothes. I was sent on paid leave for two weeks, even though I felt fine. I just had a bit of a headache and felt faint. But it was nothing terrible, really."

At the entrance of Svrljig (Сврљиг, cyrillic) town

Anyhow, 'Uranium Bike Tour', the cycling route we lovingly named, is actually not for the faint of heart. And when I said it, I meant it literally. With a huge elevation change along the way and maybe a slightly longer route than usual, it requires endurance and strong muscles as well as professional equipment. At the end, it demands commitment and love for this kind of achievement. When we were on the path for the first time, somewhere in the middle of the journey, Viktor asked me how I felt. After all, I am not in my prime years, and he wanted to know if I was okay. It was a simple question, and I wanted to give him a good answer. So I thought about it a little longer than usual.

"I feel free", I said.

And that's the simple truth of how I feel when I get on my bike and ride into the countryside outside the city.
 

Camera Obscura

Perhaps it's a little weird for me to begin an article with a glimpse of a romantic movie, but I can't think of a cooler way to start today's topic. When I came up with the idea to write about "Camera Obscura", the first thought that came to my mind was a movie from 1997 called "Addicted to Love". Of all the movies in this genre, only a few are at the top of my mind, and this one, directed by Griffin Dunne with Matthew Broderick and Meg Ryan in lead roles, is definitely the best one I remember. In short, Sam, an astronomer who, in an attempt to win back his girlfriend, turns his astronomical tools into specific spy equipment and, by using his dark-chambered pinhole camera, manages to observe what is happening in the building across the street in real time. What he used to achieve this is a principle behind Camera Obscura—a method to project the light through a small hole and create an image on the opposite wall inside a dark room, tent, or box. Something first observed and described by Mozi, a Chinese philosopher, around 400 years before Christ.


AstroMedia 'The Sun projector' cardboard kit

To better understand what camera obscura really is, think of an eye—a small, almost spherical chamber where light enters via the cornea and through a small pupil, with the iris controlling how much light enters the eye. Light then passes through a lens, which can change its shape to focus the image. The image is projected through a transparent, gel-like substance to the back of the eye (retina and macula), which contains light-sensitive cells. The light travels in straight lines from its source, and because of this, the image is formed flipped and upside down. However, the brain receives the image via the optic nerve and interprets the scene correctly.

Just like in the movie and inside the eye, we could also create our own camera obscura, which in Latin means "dark chamber." Imagine a large room completely darkened by, for example, placing cardboard sheets over the windows with a small, shaped pinhole in the middle of the cardboard. The light from the outside will enter and paint a great image on the opposite wall of the objects from the exterior. Upside down and flipped, but that could be fixed by utilizing a couple of mirrors. Check below in references for the tutorial made by PetaPixel*, an online publication covering the wonderful world of photography, or many other DIY videos from YouTube. There was also a camera obscura exhibit made by Robyn Stacey**, an Australian photographer and visual artist, that turned the Australian city of Brisbane on its head in stunning photographs.


Convert your room into a giant Camera Obscura by PetaPixel*

Today, as a continuation of the small astronomy thread on MPJ, I had my hands on a second AstroMedia kit (of three), and this one was made with the camera obscura principle for observing the Sun, its sunspots, planetary transits, and eclipses. Despite its size, it was surprisingly quick and easy to put together, or more likely, I am becoming much more experienced with paper gluing. :-) Surely, compared to the previously assembled Galilean telescope replica, it was easier to paste more non-round parts than before with the telescope's multiple tubes. Nevertheless, the Sun projector surprised me with its rather large size.

However, the kit is not an ordinary pinhole camera. Instead of a simple aperture of the camera obscura, the solar projector has a lens and two convex mirrors to choose from that work together like a Galilean telescope from the previous post. It is designed to provide higher magnification, and a plane mirror redirects the image to a comfortable viewing position. Best of all, it has a cardboard-made Dobsonian base and can be adjusted to any height between 0° and 90°. Furthermore, on both sides, there are quarter circles with degree scales, which determine the angle between the position of the sun and the horizon, which helps in calculating the height of the sun. With additional apertures, it is possible to reduce the opening and amount of light that enters the box. Smaller apertures can make sharper images. It's a surprisingly comprehensive astronomical tool.


Phases in assembling the Sun projector

To be honest, I was a bit skeptical that all the parts were glued perfectly and aligned for the light to be beaming exactly from the objective lens through the convex mirror to the plane mirror and toward the white screen, but the "First Light", as the astronomers like to call the time of the first observation with brand-new equipment, showed the Sun disc amazingly clear and focused. Now I have to wait for the next eclipse to test it with, which will be in March 2025. Or for the next Mercury transit nine years from now. Unfortunately, the transit of Venus will not happen again in this century. In the meantime, I will definitely play a little more with it and test all its features, including observation of landscapes, as in the summer there is plenty of light, so stay tuned for more information about all it can do.

Unrelated to this project, it reminded me that observing the sun could be very interesting and enjoyable. Once, when I was watching the Sun through the reflecting telescope with a solar filter, a plane transited the Sun disk at the same moment as my observation of one of the previous Mercury transits, and it was so intense, to say the least. Imagine watching Mercury slowly pass through the sun's disk when suddenly the black shadow of an airplane passes the disk in less than a second. I was stunned for a moment, trying to comprehend what exactly happened. I would probably still be puzzled by the event if the airplane hadn't left a contrail behind it, which stayed for a while in the field of view along with small Mercury and a couple of sunspots.


Details from the Sun Projector's "First Light"

Amazingly, Camera Obscura could be dating even back to the past, all the way to the prehistoric settlements. There are theories that prehistoric tribe people witnessed the effect through tiny holes in their tents or in screens of animal hide, which might have inspired them to start with cave paintings. It was not away from logic that they would intentionally make the pinholes in order to monitor the exterior for potential dangers from within their shelters.

Anyhow, it was fun building the kit as well as writing about it. Nature is definitely full of wonders, even with something so simple to test, build, and understand, like it is with monitoring light behavior within a camera obscura. By using the same principle, it is possible to make a small projector that uses a light from a smartphone to project it on the wall, and even the additional mirror is not required if the smartphone is positioned upside down in the first place. We played once with that as well, and the result is in the refs below.

Galilean Telescope (AstroMedia cardboard kit #1)
https://www.mpj.one/2023/07/galilean-telescope.html

What Do Jupiter and Mercury Have in Common?
https://www.mpj.one/2019/11/what-jupiter-and-mercury-have-in-common.html

Transit of Mercury
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2yuXbUdj6o

Shoebox Projector
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAsvUbysEk8

Ref:
 

Galilean Telescope

The knowledge and manufacture of lenses were known since the time of the old Greeks (the word "optics" came from the Greek word ὀπτικά, which means "appearance") and later in the old ages with Egyptian scholar Alhazen, who made important contributions to the study of optics in general. In Europe, the lenses arrived around the 13th century and immediately triggered the invention of the first eyeglasses. However, one important discovery had to wait three centuries later in order to set off a wave of new discoveries in the field of astronomy. The invention was made by Hans Lippershey, the spectacle maker from the Dutch city of Middelburg in the Netherlands, who in October 1608 tried to apply for a patent for a tool he described as an aid capable of "seeing faraway things as though nearby". It consisted of convex and concave lenses in a tube capable of magnifying objects three or four times. For strange reasons, the patent was rejected, but the new instrument immediately attracted attention. Now known as a spyglass, the invention ushered in a new era in astronomy and was the foundation of today's refracting telescopes.


Cardboard replica of the original telescope made by Galileo

Only half a year later, in the early summer, Galileo Galilei at the University of Padua near Venice started to build his first telescope based on the one Hans' made. He managed to design and build telescopes with increasingly higher magnifying power for his own use as well as for presents to his patrons. Galileo was a skilled instrument maker, and his telescopes were known for their high quality. Just like the initial spyglass from the Netherlands, his first telescope was basically a tube containing two lenses, but he managed to enhance the power that magnified objects approximately nine times with his first designs.

Even though Galileo perfected the manufacturing of lenses and telescopes—in later years he managed to produce over a hundred telescopes, some of them with magnifications as high as 33—only two have survived and can be seen in the Museum Galileo (Museo di Storia della Scienza) in Florence. One of the two, especially designed for Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, with gold-embossed leather, probably had (with initial lenses from the end of 1609) magnification power of around 20. The limiting factor of these early refractors, especially those with higher magnification, was their small field of view, but still, it allowed Galileo to see that the Milky Way is just a multitude of millions of stars and that the Moon's surface was not smooth and perfect but rough, with mountains and craters whose shadows changed with the position of the Sun. He saw the phases of Venus throughout the year and the most interesting fact that planet Jupiter was accompanied by four tiny satellites that moved around it with distinctive proof that not everything in the heavens revolves around the Earth.


Phases in assembling Galileo's historical telescope

This particular gold-embossed leather telescope from the Florence museum was the model for the AstroMedia cardboard replica kit I got my hands on last weekend. It was advertised as "With this historically accurate cardboard replica, you can experience firsthand the great research achievements of Galileo, which he achieved despite the optical performance of this telescope, which is modest by today's standards". All I could say after two days of carefully pasting pieces of paper one after the other was that I couldn't agree more, especially at the last moment when I pointed it to the one-kilometer-away sign of the neighboring shopping center and clearly read what it said. I can only imagine where Galileo pointed his first telescope and what his initial reaction was.

While Galileo did not invent the telescope in the first place, his contribution toward their use in astronomy and science earned him two phrase coins: Galilean telescopes, which now represent a popular name for a refraction telescope type, and Galilean moons, now referring to the first four of Jupiter's natural satellites.


Jupiter's moons as seen through modest reflecting telescope compared to the view
from a small refracting spyglass similar in size to Galileo's original telescope

Unfortunately, I cannot make any astronomy photos with this replica; after all, it is made of cardboard, and fixing it on the moving sky is a mission impossible, not to mention its extremely small field of view, which is perhaps less than a centimeter in apparent terms, which would provide only troubles for focusing the camera through it. For these reasons, I decided to embed a photo of Jupiter's moons as seen with a modest reflecting telescope (the one you can see in the background of the first image above). Below you can find a link to the YouTube video of the entire event we created a couple of years ago when Jupiter was close to Earth. In the upper right corner of the photo, I also included a small view of how Galileo might have seen Jupiter and its four large moons. It is what can be seen with a decent refracting spyglass or powerful binoculars, which, in terms of magnification power, stand at the level of Galileo's scopes.

Camera Obscura (AstroMedia cardboard kit #2)
https://www.mpj.one/2023/07/camera-obscura.html

Jupiter Moons (zviktor22):
https://youtu.be/VTEsXEx-tnE

Ref:
https://astromedia.de/Das-Historische-Galileo-Teleskop
https://catalogue.museogalileo.it/index.html
 

The Prequel to the Prequel’s Prequel

Hmmm, I think I got that title wrong. I wanted to write something catchy, but obviously language puzzles are not really my thing. In the case of Star Wars storytelling backwards in time, this triple 'prequel' looks fine, but again, if I put all the main Jedi characters of various ages in chronological order, i.e., something like this: Gella > Avar > Anakin > Luke > Rey, then it does look like I missed one more word, 'prequel,' in it. Or... well... if we consider Rey's story to be the only sequel to the first prequel's main story in this thread, which started with "A New Hope", the very first movie of the franchise that initiated it all... then I could be correct after all. Right? Oh, darn it, let it be... So, let's explore the latest prequel in the galaxy far, far away and long time ago, minus 150 years.


Minus 150 years means 150 solar cycles of Coruscant, the capital of the Republic, an entire planet evolved into one giant city before Phase I in the Star Wars canon, described in the books, started with "The High Republic: Light of the Jedi".  Phase II consists of two (adult) books, "The High Republic: Convergence" and "The High Republic: Cataclysm", and it is placed officially around the year 382 BBY (382 Coruscant years before the battle of Yavin within "A New Hope").

After finishing the books, I couldn't shake the same feeling I had after watching "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story". Due to the early history of VFX in creating the movies, the very first trilogy came, from this distance, not visually great and had a hard time conjuring the "wars" part from the title. Don't take me wrong; when I was young and saw "A New Hope" for the first time, I watched it with my mouth wide open almost the entire duration of the film. The second trilogy jumped into the trap of using too many visual effects, which, as a result, looked more like a fairy tale than anything else. The latest trilogy came to fix things a bit, but still, in my mind, only "Rogue One" rendered the war as it should be—as a brutal and believable one with tremendous action and a fabulous ending. In the world of the "Star Wars" books that belong to the same franchise canon, "The High Republic: Cataclysm" provided the same feeling as "Rogue One" once did. The latest book fully justified the entire "Star Wars" premise. There were moments during the reading that I couldn't believe that words alone were capable enough to portray the battle of such epic proportions using only the reader's imagination and nothing more.


Behind the pen of the latest novel was Lydia Kang, and compared to the prequel book and those three from Phase I, "Cataclysm" is perhaps the best of them all. Sure, Lydia's storytelling is perfect with lots of characters well described, but she was in luck—the story that ended the first phase of the High Republic era had it all: the already mentioned fast-paced action described in great detail, interesting and respectable villains, and multiple storylines from protagonists belonging to the "good guys" (or to the Light side of the Force, to be exact), including both the Jedi and people originating from the Republic forces and those from planets Eiram and E'ronoh, whose backstory is the backbone of the entire phase. If we add young(er) Yoda and Yaddle fully included in the story, the author really had an easy task to pack one of the most interesting Star Wars books to date.

Surely, the end is not concluded, and we are left with many loose ends on both sides (villains and heroes), but that was to be expected. As hinted in previous books, the Leveler (a Nameless species), with the ability to overwhelm force-sensitives and nullify their connection to the Force, is something I am sure we will encounter again in the future. The future of Star Wars canon, that is, as it is absent from the movies, and I guess their fate will be resolved in the void after Phase 2 and the Battle of Yavin, or the time described with 0 BBY. 


To me, one of the most interesting facts after reading all five Star Wars adult books from the High Republic times and those I also read that don't belong to the canon or directly to the official franchise was the need to picture all the species from the galaxy far, far away. The history of watching movies helped a lot, but I definitely needed to do a little research to find out what all the species look like to allow my imagination to be as accurate as possible while reading.

The images I chose to illustrate the text of this blog story are not entirely accurate, as they belong to different Star Wars concept arts, but the High Republic stories are still very young, and we will have to wait for the future movies for more photographic details. I, for one, would definitely want to see at least one movie dedicated to these events in the upcoming years.
 

Saronic Islands with Rackpeople

I have no sailor material in me. At all. I don't mean qualified skills that are fascinating and easily acquired through study and experience. I mean literally and physically, my body is simply not built for the navy. I realized that when I entered those 4D/5D theaters for the first (and last) time, about a dozen years ago. I remember anxiously waiting for that sophisticated motion ride system built into movie theater seats to come to my city, and when it finally arrived, I was among the first in the ticket line... And I was the first to get out of the small theater with a terrible motion sickness thundering throughout my entire body. I should have guessed what was going to happen after seeing the title of the short film had the word "rollercoaster" in it. I fully recovered more than 24 hours later. After that, I never stepped into any movie theater with more than a 3D label on its front gate. Sometimes, even in those, I check if the chair is fixed solid.

To be honest, I knew the outcome would be like this because it has happened to me many times at sea during summer vacations, and every time I promised myself the dancing boat floors would never see my foot again. However, in my case, it's just that all those self-promises are easy to reject when new experiences and adventures knock on the door. In that spirit, when my good friend Lasse, the head of Rackpeople, one of the leading IT companies in Copenhagen, asked me to join the cruise around the Saronic Islands this May in Greece, without thinking, I said yes. How could I say no to seeing all the wonders of the Saronic Gulf, its crystal blue waters, the amazing history of Ancient Greece, and the place where Themistocles' outmatched fleet defeated the forces of King Xerxes and drove the Persian army back to Asia, never to try again to conquer the Greek mainland?⁣

Bastions with old cannons at the Hydra entrance

The cruise started on the island of Hydra. I boarded a catamaran yacht, medium-sized but impressive in every way. Fortunately for me, the first two days of the cruise passed with extremely calm seas and enjoyable spring weather, which is usual for the Saronic Gulf at this time of the year. As for the island itself, two things immediately caught my eye. The residential area is so compact that there is simply no room for any type of motor vehicle, and by law, cars and motorcycles are not allowed (except for garbage trucks). To travel outside the port town, the only means are horses, mules, donkeys, and water taxis. The second site was bastions on the port entrance with lots of cannons still pointing toward the sea. They originated in the 18th century in order to protect the island from assault by the Ottoman fleet and pirates during the Greek war for independence.

At first, I thought that the island's name was connected to the legendary myth of the Lernaean Hydra, the multiheaded water monster who was slain by Heracles in his second labor, but unfortunately, very little is known about the ancient times of the island. The name in Greek is simply derived from the word "water" (ὕδρα). Although, in classical Greece, Lerna was a region of springs and a former lake near the east coast of the Peloponnesus, which is close to the island of Hydra, just across the strait, and in ancient myths was represented as one of the entrances to the Underworld.

The view from Poros Clock Tower

The next destination, and where we spent the first night, was the well-known tourist destination, the island of Poros. It lies on the other side of Argolis, the eastern part of the region of Peloponnese, where it acts as the Saronic Gulf's southern arm. The Poros' main port is separated from the Peloponnese only by a 200-meter-wide sea channel, and my main impression in the morning was that of the poor little ferry, which is breaking the perfect silence connecting Poros with the town of Galatas across the strait every half hour. Sometimes carrying only a couple of people across. I'm sure a future bridge would be something worth building.

Fortunately, and I mean it when I say it out loud, we had ex-Royal Danish Navy sailors at the helm of every boat. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have running exercises in the morning, and if we hadn't had a morning run, we wouldn't have passed through the phenomenally narrow streets of the small town that stretch through the entire hillside by the marina. Running (and sometimes walking while catching our breath) down and up the small streets and countless stairs from the harbor to the famous clock tower made me think and better understand the life in such small towns where you can feel the ease of living life to the fullest.

Rackpeople at the Moni island and photos from the mainland

The next day was absolutely the best one on the cruise. It started with the sailing competition between the two boats. In the best spirit of the teambuilding activity, we competed in sailing between Poros Marine and Moni Island, the strange islet in the middle of the Saronic Gulf that absolutely hates humans, but let's get back to that later. One would think shutting the engines down and sailing at a speed of, on some occasions, less than one nautical mile per hour and sailing only by using maps, compass, and wind arrow is ridiculous, but it is the complete opposite. It requires full team effort and cooperation, just like in tech companies, and it was one amazing experience. From the navigation part, through speed and time tracking, steering the ship, and hard work with two sails, everything had to be synchronized and precise, and when inexperienced IT people do it, the result is exceptional and filled with all possible sailing phases, from challenges in understanding the basics of sailing and navigation to all the comical moments we went through but also all those proud moments when you realize you've done something right.

As for the Moni island, half of it is rocky and barren, but what was most interesting was its other half. The only inhabitants of that part are a family of wild peacocks, deer, wild goats, including Cretan ibexes, and, of course, many squirrels. Humans are limited to the only seasonal beach accessed only by sea, including us that day. The animals are not afraid of humans and wandered free even on the skirts of the forests, where ruins of humans's attempts to inhabit the Moni are visible all over. The old men of Aegina Island across the bay tell various stories about the history of the island that always include curses, inexplicable destructions, three fires, and an ongoing struggle between the divine forces and human stubbornness. Telling in whispers, they say that always when people tried to inhabit the island, no matter if that was in the Byzantine period when they tried to turn the island into a dairy farm or during the 1970s, when the island served as an organized camping spot, it always ended in large fires that devastated the little island to the full.

The spirit of Rackpeople after a long but a great day

But the sightseeing of the Moni after the cruise competition wasn't the end of the day. It continued with one amazing lecture given by Erik, the second ship captain, about leadership, relations between competence and confidence among team members, and all the connections between tech companies and sailing. The epilogue of the competition itself was unclear and ultimately not important; what mattered the most was great spirit and team-building closure, which ended in singing popular songs led by the first ship captain, Lasse, who surprised us all with his musical talent, which was not left unrewarded even by the people on the neighboring yachts with thunderous applause.

Unfortunately, in the spirit of the Moni Island hatred for people, that night came really nasty weather from nowhere. In the morning it turned into a small windy rollercoaster that woke me up with the first sunshine. I came on deck to find a spot where I could pass it as best I could, but soon it was the 4D movie theater all over again. Only this time it lasted several hours, and I sadly realized that the cruise for me is over, as I knew I would need more than a day to recover. After a couple of hours of 'pros and cons' measuring, with great regret, I opted out of the remainder of the trip. After all, being on the boat is all about being part of it; otherwise, it is something else entirely.


The Seaview from the hotel Methanion

At the next marina, a taxi took me to the nearby port town of Methana, where I missed the last ferry by an hour, so I went straight to the first hotel, where I took the night to recover. There, I witnessed a warm hospitality by the hotel owner, something I only felt before in Greece, especially in my childhood when we were visiting the country frequently on family vacations. Serbia and Greece have had this unusual friendship between the two countries from time immemorial. There was no part in the history of the two countries with any animosities between the two, let alone any conflicts or wars. So it's always nice to see a genuine smile on people's faces when I say where I am coming from. Anyhow, when she heard I am Serbian, with the warmest smile, she said, 'I will give you the best sea view in Methana'. And the best it was.

It turned out Methana is not an island at all. The best I could describe it is a 'wannabe island' peninsula. It has an island shape but is connected to the Peloponnese with a narrow land bridge. Methana is entirely of active volcanic origin, with the last eruption occurring in the 3rd century BC. Due to the pressure of the plate of North Africa, which slid under the Asia and European plates, there were active tectonic movements on the line of the Aegean islands, which include Methana, Milos, Santorini, and Nisyros. As it seems, the future of volcanism in Greece is not yet written, and Methana is one of the volcanoes that unfortunately has not yet said its last word. The last great eruption in Greece was the Minoan super-volcanic catastrophe that reshaped the island of Thera in the middle of the second millennium BC and devastated the entire Mediterranean for years.

Aegina port seen from the ferry

As a central island of the Saronic Gulf, Aegina shared the rich history of ancient Greece with other independent states. It was inhabited since the Neolithic and was at the peak of power around the 7th century BC and after, due to its strategic position. The Aegina economy was strong and competed with Athena with silver coins as a currency recognized in other states. They were rivals for many years, and Aegina even made a close collaboration with Persia until the battle of Salamis (480 BC), when the island ultimately sided with Themistocles. The rest of the history of Aegina's independence was full of turmoil, but its glory at the end faded out through numerous invaders and occupations in the face of Macedon, Romans, Venice, and Ottomans. Today it is a holiday and weekend resort for Athenians and tourists worldwide. Just next to it, Agistri, a small pine-clad island with pristine beaches and crystal-clear waters, shared the history of neighboring Aegina Island and considered being part of its statehood. It was unfortunately not a part of the cruise. Perhaps in the years to follow.

Finally, and historically, the most famous island is Salamina, where the already-mentioned battle of Salamis took place two millennia ago. It is the largest Greek island in the Saronic Gulf, and due to its close proximity to Piraeus, it is not the best choice for vacation time. If we add the fact that the northern part of the island is a home for the largest naval base of the Hellenic Navy, it is clear that the island is not as popular a tourist destination as the other islands, but it is far from lacking destinations worth attention. If I happen to visit it in the future, on the top of my list would be monuments dedicated to Salamis' ancient battle and the Cave of Euripides, where the playwright Euripides came to write his tragedies. The man was described as a misanthrope who avoided society by lurking in that cave, but even so, his 19 plays that survived the time since then are still performed and studied today over the distance of more than two millennia.

Concept art of the Battle of Salamis by artist Court Chu*

If I were to try to sum up the past week and describe my first cruise longer than a day in three words, it would definitely be "an extraordinary experience". Especially the part about learning new things about sailing and trying to be part of a team in close cooperation with colleagues. Being in Greece for the umpteenth time is also special to me, and having the opportunity to talk to locals is another dimension of the travel. Spending most of the time at sea limits that part of the experience, but in this case it was intentional and focused on teambuilding, which is perfectly fine. I am sure there are many methods to achieve this, and sailing is definitely among the top five.
 

Interview With a Teenager

There are many periods in one person's life. To me, they all seem distinct from each other. Referring to those farthest in the past, in my mind, it was almost like they didn't really happen to me. Some of the choices I made before, from this perspective, looked like some other person made them on my behalf. Especially in the first couple of decades. But that's the point of growing up and all the changes that happen from early youth to adulthood. Later, we are left with tons of memories that we look back on most of the time with a smile on our faces, sometimes with a little sadness or shame, and once in a while with a confused look as if it happened at all. But one thing is certain: everything that happened, exactly how it happened, defines us as we are today.


Viktor, testing the drums before 'Some Like It Hot,' theatrical play

Of them all, no single period in life compares to the one called the teenage years. I remember those years. Vividly. If I could choose just one phrase to describe all that's happening during those seven years, it would definitely be 'trial and error'. It was just like tasting the life that was thrown at me for the first time. Understanding it. Embracing it. Maybe a little changing it on the way.

But enough about me; the rest of this post is about my son Viktor and the continuation of the 'Interview' series, started with him being seven and ten years old in 'Interview With an Expert' and 'Interview With an X'. Anyway, these are 15 questions for his 15 years I selected to ask him today. I'm really proud of all his answers and his way of thinking. 

Describe yourself in 5 words or less.
Determined, ambitious, loyal, generous, and honest.

What's the best part of your day at school? Why?
P.E. and all of the breaks in between subjects. Because I get to talk to my friends normally and rest a little bit.

If you could invite three people, living or dead, to your birthday party, who would you choose? What would you talk about?
Einstein, Jesus, and my father. We would question Jesus.

Imagine you’re the president, and you need to have 3 people to assist you. Who would you pick and why? 
I'm not really into politics, so I don't know whom to pick.

What have you learned in life that you feel will be the most useful?
Motivation isn't real, but discipline is. Try to be as optimistic but as realistic as possible. Never give up.

If you could change anything in the world and make it idealistic, what 3 things would it be and why?
I would get rid of all the governments; there would be no more countries, and everyone would speak the same language.

How would you explain Earth to aliens?
I think there is a lot of diversity to this question, but let's say in the case that we come to them. I would most likely try in some way to use physics, math, and chemistry to explain Earth.

Do you think it's better to have one great skill you're an A+ at, or many skills you’re a B at, and why?
This question is very easy because if you had only one skill that you are A+ in, then the rest of the skills would not be so great... So that is horrible... I would rather have many skills that I'm a B at. I could easily improve in skills that I like. And I also have a lot of options if I ever change my mind.

Imagine you're the teacher tomorrow at school. What are 3 things you'd teach that you think would help make school better?
Self-defense, how to be a better person, and showing the kids the real world.

How would you explain the word 'love' to someone without using the word 'love'?
Umm... Make this with my hands. 🫶

What is the most important thing you learned in school NOT taught by a teacher?
The world isn't black or white. It's gray.

If you could travel back in time 3 years, what advice would you give yourself?
Make me proud.

If you could grow up to be famous, what would you be famous for?
I would be famous for motivating other people to become the best version of themselves and showing how to really be successful.

If you had enough money that you never had to work, what would you do with your time?
There is no money in this world that would make me not work.

What do you think your life would look like 10 years from now?
I hope I will be successful in the future and be more capable.

So there you go. When selecting the questions, I knew they should not be too detailed or too serious. Nevertheless, they were supposed to be appropriate for the age, and to make sure, I performed a little research first to find the right ones, which I thought were the most suitable. Sometimes, even the shortest answer to an apparently entertaining question shows a lot.

I wonder, if I had a chance, how I would answer them back then. Hopefully not too different.
 

Are We All NPCs?

Let me answer with what I think right away. To me, this is not one of those yes-or-no questions because it's impossible to tell. Simply put, the theory behind the question is most likely unprovable. Not from the inside anyway. 'Simulation Hypothesis' and the phrase 'non-playable characters' are relatively new concepts, born not that long ago, when digital computing came to be fast enough to produce graphically demanding multiplayer games sophisticated enough to hint at this question and the probability that we might also be inside one of those simulations. And to dispute the question about the nature of reality is quite useless, because everything that surrounds us, no matter how strange we think it is, can also be real and not part of the code. Even if our reality were simulated, its origin would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prove. By design, nothing inside the simulation could be able to see the lines of the code, only the outcome of its work. In order to say that we are all NPCs, something extraordinary has to happen. Something unexpected, like a bug in the code. A glitch that would clearly break the laws of physics.


On the other end, in the future, near or far, the engine behind simulated characters in games would be even more sophisticated in a way that all characters would be able to easily pass Turing's test. To act just like you and me. The AI behind them would be so advanced that they would be equal to the human players. Or much better. So to speak, one game in particular has already achieved this goal. The Chess. When asked about chess engines, Magnus Carlsen, the current world champion, said exactly this: "I find it much more interesting to play humans. And also, of course, now that they have become so strong in a game like that, I wouldn't stand a chance". I love chess, but I have to admit I disagree with Magnus—playing against computer bots became more and more indistinguishable from playing real people. In the most popular chess.com engine online, I solely play against computer personalities behind the Komodo and Stockfish engines, and I have enjoyed them for years. But I agree that playing against humans is much more fun. For now. Let's revive this talk again in a decade or two... Or three... When chess bots develop more of their personalities. More non-chess features. A sense of humor, maybe.

In any case, the main problem with simulation theory is that it lacks a definition of reality itself. What it really is. Is this what we are living in? If it is simulated, where is it simulated from? If we skip all the philosophical views so far solely based on Nick Bostrom's book 'Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?' and stick to the physics realm only, I think that simulation of any reality or anything at all requires two prerequisite conditions to start with. One is that there is a high probability that the system performing the simulation should be distinct from its simulation, and the second is a large complexity behind it, something that Jonathan Bartlett from the Blyth Institute explained with "The problem with that [simulation in general] is that it always takes more stuff to simulate something than the thing you’re simulating".


Additionally, we are kind of looking at the simulation hypothesis today through the gaming lens, in which simulated reality must have 'real' players from the original coder's reality. But what if our reality, if being simulated, is not a multiplayer game? What if it is a zero-player game? Or not a game at all? In that case, we all could be NPCs, and there would be no real players. Because original and simulated reality could be two completely incompatible actualities. What if simulated reality is not a computer program at all? What if it is something else entirely?

I know I post a lot of questions here, but bear with me. If we follow the logic of a more complex, upper reality, which is distinct enough from its simulated creation, what would I think of first? For me, it's shadows in Plato's 'Allegory of the Cave'. In his famous work, Plato describes a group of people who are chained to the cave, facing a blank wall. All they saw were shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them. The shadows are the prisoners' entire reality, while the objects before the fire represent the true forms of the items that they can only perceive through reason. Plato goes further elaborating on his mind experiment, but for our topic, let's focus on the shadows themselves. They are just two-dimensional images of something coming from the upper third dimension. They are distinct from the original objects and certainly less complex and the product of a comprehensive setup.


Well, the final question arises by itself. Is it possible to cast three-dimensional shadows of four-dimensional objects? Just like a square represents a cube from the third dimension, the cube could be just a shadow of a tesseract's fourth-dimensional counterpart. The casting in this scenario would not be as simple as in Plato's story, nor would the shadows be what we mean by the term, but it's definitely something worth giving a second thought. One hypothetical four-dimensional reality would be an ideal source of three-dimensional simulations, and there's even a scientific theory that 'casts' light in the right direction. It's called the 'holographic principle'.

The origin of the theory lies in black holes, and the best is to quote my fictional self from the 'Revelation of Life', a hard science short story I wrote a couple of years ago: "If Hawking was right, any black hole, no matter how massive, would evaporate over time. When that happens, all the information swallowed inside would be lost. The problem is that quantum dynamics is clear about it—nothing, especially information, can ever be lost." The solution to this paradox is that the information belonging to the objects swallowed by the black hole should not be part of the three-dimensional reality in the first place. The holographic principle states that "the description of a volume of space can be thought of as encoded on a boundary to the region", or the dimensional boundary surrounding the entire universe, while our familiar space-time continuum might be just a (holographic) projection of the entities and events located outside.


Finally, and to get back to the original titled question, in this reflection we indeed could be all NPCs in a hypothetical simulation originated from the upper dimension. Just like in a famous zero-player game invented by John Horton Conway, a mathematician from Princeton University, a simulated three-dimensional world can only be a setup, created with an initial state and left to evolve on its own. Just like we culture bacterial colonies in a Petri dish. Or it can be a more complex setup with added life forms driven by conscious artificial entities or even by 'real' people from the upper dimension. For the question of why such a simulation would be created in the first place, there is no good answer. The reality of a fourth (or fifth, sixth, etc.) dimension would be something we wouldn't be able to fathom right away. Or at all. Nevertheless, I thought about one simple reason and embedded it in the 'Revelation of Life', but if you are eager to read it, please watch 'Game of Life' first, a short film that precedes it.

Game of Life (Simulation story, prequel)
https://www.mpj.one/2016/08/game-of-life.html

Revelation of Life (Simulation story, a hard science fiction)
https://www.mpj.one/2020/10/revelation-of-life-part-one.html

Refs:
https://builtin.com/hardware/simulation-theory
https://mindmatters.ai/2021/01/jonathan-bartlett-on-why-we-do-not-live-in-a-simulated-universe/
https://chesspulse.com/is-magnus-carlsen-better-than-a-computer-2/
https://www.chess.com/terms/chess-engine
https://medium.com/@jacksimmonds89/are-you-an-npc-this-may-disturb-you
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_principle

Image ref:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0139809/
 

The War No One Wants

Before the start of the Great War, the prevailing sentiment in most, if not all, European countries was that victory in any major military conflict was guaranteed only if it was fought with a large, durable, well-trained, and modern army. The dawn of the 20th century established the environment in which countries entered the race to mobilize the largest part of the qualified population, to create faster motorized transport for troops and logistics, to use state-of-the-art communications and the greatest range of artillery, as well as to use various new drugs in medical treatments like morphine and even cocaine to boost the troops and fuel their fighting mood. Compared to 19th-century wars, new warfare was revolutionized and upped to the next level. By June 1914, the stage was set, and only a spark was needed to fire off the conflict.

But was it really inevitable? Was the military race alone enough to cause the conflict in which 20 million died and many more were wounded? Or did it need a plot to be played in just a specific order that would lead to the unavoidable horror? Did it need at least one party to actually want the war to happen? To honestly believe that a war on that scale could be won?


When asked if the Great War could have been avoided, Ronald Spector, professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University, said that ’if Sir Edward Grey hadn't been the foreign secretary in Britain, then Britain might not have necessarily entered the conflict. Furthermore, if German Kaiser Wilhelm II hadn't been the flaky person he was, then the Germans may have made different decisions, and in the end, if Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who at the time was the head of the faction that wanted to avoid war, had not been killed, the outcome might have been different’. According to Professor Spector and many others, the real trigger for the First World War was indeed only a combination of these unfortunate coincidences that took place in the summer of 1914—military preparations, the alliances, the people in power—all of those steps that built one after another created the Great War.

In the aftermath, the war did happen, and to many, including me, the question was not who won it four years later but rather what stage it created in the following years. It ended the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the German Empire lost a lot of territory, and the Turkish Empire ceased to exist. On the other end, new statehoods arose along with a new wave of nationalism, as many felt they hadn't achieved enough for their sacrifices and losses. History books at the end of the war never really recognized the winner or the loser. It officially ended in the Compiègne railway car on November 11, 1918, and the final document was signed as an armistice.


But what about today, a century and a change after the war that could have been avoided and the war that allegedly nobody wanted? Is there a new similar danger we could repeat again? The one that, according to Ken Follett, could also be one tragic accident, all things considered. Is there a war that no one wants today? The one that could leave a permanent mark on the surface of humanity. The one that will not be fought in trenches and the one that will truly be worldwide this time.

I think we all know the answer to that question. Yet, just like before, and even though nobody really wants it to happen, it could happen nevertheless. Just like before, it only needs a plot that, if set in motion, step by step, spark by spark, decision by decision, can lead to the point of no return. Are we today, on the first anniversary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, already walking that path? We already have everything the Great War had before it started. Countries have already been in the arms race for a long time—the race for ultimate supremacy and world military dominance. Army budgets are filled up to the roof. More than 10,000 nuclear warheads of various kinds are already in military stockpiles for use by missiles, aircraft, ships, and submarines. We also have questionable leaders like before, even flaky ones like in Professor Spector's description. Let's just hope we will have better luck this time.


However, in light of today's story, let's get back to Ken Follett's fiction. I am really a big fan of his work, and his current thriller, "Never", is his vision of how the Great War could repeat today. In a chronological order of events that one by one led to the brink of a nuclear war, he amazingly described a fictional story that looks so real and so familiar. And so possible. He begins the book with a quote from a Chinese proverb, "Two tigers cannot share the same mountain", and it amazingly describes the entire book premise. I couldn't agree more with Stephen King when he said that "Ken Follett can't write a bad book", and I could only add that "Never" is definitely more than a book. One of his best. One of those that keeps you thinking long after you finish it.

Refs:
https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/was-world-war-i-avoidable
https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/the-great-myth-world-war-i-was-no-accident/
 

Time Travel and Superposition in Dark

I was no more than four years old when our car got stuck on a snowy hill decades ago. Everyone but me went outside to push to get us out of the frozen road. More people gathered from other cars to help each other, and soon everyone was engaged in a small rescue operation. That certainly didn't mean I didn't help—as well as others pushing the car from the outside, I did the same from the inside. From the back seat, I put my hands on the front and pushed hard. In my defense, deep down I knew that what I was doing was kind of weird and useless. At the time, I just didn't know why. I was just ashamed sitting alone and doing nothing. Well, like they say, with age comes wisdom, and now I know that what I did was physically impossible, just like in the case of Baron Münchhausen—when he got himself and his horse he was sitting on out of a swamp by pulling his own hair upwards. And just like in an old expression about an absurd and impossible thing one can do—if I were to pull the bootstraps on my shoes up, lift myself into the air, and jump over the fence.

In science fiction, the word bootstrap is also used to portray the impossible task in all the paradoxes that are always hard to understand. Within time travel, the bootstrap paradox is a theoretical paradox that occurs when an object, information, or human is sent back in time and becomes trapped in the infinite cause-effect loop in which it no longer has a detectable point of origin. For a simple example, if I somehow send a copy of this very blog post to my younger self before I write it in the first place, the origin of the text becomes utterly unknown. It exists in the time loop, and I become just somebody who typed it in. Yet, the text will still have my own style of writing and my own thoughts written down and not somebody else's. Hopefully, you will not find this case implicitly weird, because weird in this blog post is yet to come.


I have been aware of the existence of Netflix's 'Dark' for a long time now, but due to its scientific background and complexity, I knew it required continuous binge time to watch it, and last weekend I finally decided the time was just right, and I swallowed all three seasons in just three days. Like no other TV show, it was solely based on time travel and quantum superposition, and... in a word, it was outstanding. With lots of characters to follow through both space and time, it did require full concentration, but thankfully, due to the fantastic direction, script, and performances of all involved, it was more than understandable and enjoyable, to say the least. It is impossible to continue this without spoilers, so if you are eager to watch it first, this is the point of this blog post to stop reading, and I advise it strongly.

Anyhow, Dark's premise is all about bootstrap paradoxes. There are multiple plotlines in the show heavily embedded in time loops, just like my example of this blog post traveling to the past. If that was weird, imagine what this kind of paradox, involving time travel of real people and their intertwined stories, could do to your sanity only as an observer. On top of that, season one passed with very few or no special effects, and there was no reason for that either. In Dark, all the post-time-travel effects are already embedded in the future, or the present, from where they traveled back in time. For example, Helge already had all visible face scars that were consequences of Ulrich's time travel. Also, the stories about the murdered woman on the bottom of the lake were already socially spread even before Katharina was murdered in her own time travel.


Even though Mikkel's time travel was the prime story behind Dark, where he ended up being a father to Jonas, the main protagonist, for me the strangest and most ingenious bootstrap paradox is Charlotte, who was born in the future, traveled to the past as a baby, and became a mother to Elisabeth, who in her own future became a mother to Charlotte herself. The endless loop between them lies in the fact that they are both mother and daughter to each other. And even this is not the weirdest bootstrap compared to the entire Nielsen family. Martha and Jonas' child, who is in the show and the strangest character of them all, in his own time travel became a father to Tronte, who was Martha's own grandfather. This practically means that Martha's son was his own great-great-grandfather. In the aftermath, most of the members of the Nielsen family are practically the result of a direct or inherited bootstrap paradox and have to thank their existence to time travel itself.

To be honest, I was so perturbed and unsettled with all the relationships by the end of season two that I was not sure how they would come out of this at all. There were so many open loops with no indications how it could go any further. At that point, I thought that this show would go down the drain very quickly, or they must come up with something even more out of the ordinary to continue the story. And then, at the very end, in the last episode, came another Martha, who stood by the dead Martha and answered Jonas' question about where she came from exactly with "Die Frage ist nicht aus welcher Zeit, sondern aus welcher Welt". Well, I am not fluent in German at all, but I know a word or two, and in this case I knew very much the difference between Zeit and Welt. In the outcome, even before the subtitle showed up, I was left staring at the screen with my mouth wide open.


The final season introduced even more time travelers, both new and doppelgangers, but more importantly, the story started to unveil now with the introduction of the cause and effect of the quantum superposition mirrored in the macro world(s) and character's actions. In the quantum world, superposition means particles can exist in different states and even multiple places at the same time. The weirdness comes if we try to observe the process. At that instant, superposition breaks into just one outcome of their many. Just like with the double-slit experiment of light behavior* or in binary superposition with Schrödinger's cat in the show explained by H.G. Tannhaus in one of the episodes.

The difference between the micro and macro worlds, with time travel involved, was that in the macro realm it was now 'possible' to act differently in the same time loop and in one pass to choose one outcome and in the other a different one. That allowed for the same superposition collapse, but in two time loops to create two different Jonas' and two different Marthas and to even further complicate the intertwining situations now with three worlds involved. In the ingeniously written ending of the show, as I expected, time travel loops were impossible to untangle, and the only outcome was, again with time travel interfering, to save one world at the expense of the other two and, by doing so, to prohibit any time travel in the original world.

The ending of two worlds disappearing was just perfect and beautiful, and the very last scene explains which of all the characters survive existence and which ones were only products of either direct or inherited bootstraps and therefore not possible to exist in the final world.

* Reality of Double-Slit Experiment
https://www.mpj.one/2022/11/reality-of-double-slit-experiment.html

Strange world of physics and time travel at MPJ:
https://www.mpj.one/search/label/physics
https://www.mpj.one/search/label/timetravel

Refs:

Dark refs:
https://www.thisisbarry.com/film/netflix-dark-the-bootstrap-paradox/
 

Insights Discovery

It's amazing how different people react to the same thing. Consider the famous question, "Is the glass half empty or half full?" What do you see inside such glass when you spot it on the table? The water or the air? This is, of course, not a school-grade sort of question. Actually, there is no right or wrong answer here. There's no definite reason to consider anyone thinking that the glass is half full to be overly optimistic or those who see the emptiness of the glass to be unreasonably realistic. It is just a point of view and nothing more. But it tells a bit about your character, or how Carl Jung, a well-known Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, defined it—your personality type.

The point of inquiries like this one is simply in the fact that if we ask ourselves enough questions, they would have the potential to unveil our personality type fully, or to a high degree of accuracy. However, we would need to be careful in both selecting the questions and defining all resulting personality types. There are numerous personality tests within psychology, and of those based on Carl Jung's study, the most comprehensive is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which assigns you a value from four categories: introversion or extraversion, sensing or intuition, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving. One letter from each category is producing a four-letter test result. For example, if your test is resulting in a dominance of introversion combined with intuition while you are basically a thinking person with perceiving trait, you would be assigned an "INTP" personality type.


Perhaps most of the psychology in relation to personality types is based on Jung's "Analytical Psychology", the phrase he coined in 1912 when he published "Psychology of the Unconscious", his breakthrough study, which firstly relates to his split-up with Sigmund Freud after six years of collaborating in the field. In this book, he establishes for the first time that his new theory focused on the collective unconscious instead of Freud's conception of libido and the importance of sexual development. When he first read it, Freud muttered the word "heresy" and felt that Jung had "lost his way" from that point on. Perhaps, just like with the 'glass half filled or half empty', this dispute between the two extraordinary men from the history of psychology has no definite winner or loser. They might both be right, depending on the point of view. After all, the human mind is driven by a still mysterious engine we keep trying to fully understand.

However, what's interesting in regard to the Freud-Jung dispute is what Jung said some years after the split-up. According to Jung, the main difference between him and Freud was their personality types being introvert and extravert, respectively. Their attitude types were pretty much opposite, as the first type was persuaded by the voice of their inner self, while the second found their interest inexorably drawn to external things. In his book 'Psychological Types', published in 1921, he said that "since we all swerve rather more towards one side or the other, we naturally tend to understand everything in terms of our own type".


But, if we get back to the personality test, the most obvious question is, what would its application be? Other than in medical/psychiatric practice, I mean. Of course, we all know ourselves well, so there's no point in some test telling us what we really are. We already know that. If you have been friends with somebody for a long time, surely there is no need for any test to tell you the obvious about what you have already learned about your friend from the experience. Clearly, and maybe the only use of such a test would be to learn about the personality of someone whom you don't really know well. However, the test, by its nature, is extremely personal, and it naturally raises a wave of privacy issues that are in most countries protected by the law, especially after previous decades of the expansion of the internet.

Keeping in mind everything we know so far, what's left and where one such test could be more than useful is, no doubt, all kinds of business environments. The offices are, by definition, filled with lots of colleagues, and the advent of knowing everyone's personality type would benefit communication between people and enhance productivity significantly. Providing, of course, that employers and employees are fine with sharing their personality test results with each other.


Finally, at the end, we come to the titled personality test that was created exclusively as a business application. Based on Dr. Yolanda Jacobi's interpretation of Carl Jung's theory of psychological type, along with other theories from psychology, 'Insights Discovery' is a simple and accessible four-color model designed to help us better understand ourselves and others. If you check the above picture, the basic colors are divided between introversion/extraversion (vertically) and thinking/feeling (horizontally). The test itself is a 25-frame questionnaire of 100 word pairs, which, when completed, produces the Insights Discovery Personal Profile. Of course, no person is entirely described by one of the colors alone. After all, we are all a mix of different traits that we display differently based on different occasions, environments, moods, etc. Hence, Insight Discovery offers a total of eight personality types, which are shown in the center circle with four more types, which represent a blend of two colors.

Please find more details in the references below, as I won't go deeper into the science behind 'Insights Discovery' than this. However, if you decide to take the test, you will get a result printed in detail explaining your personality type on more than 20 pages, where you can find your key strengths but also potential weaknesses along with healthy tips for communication between types for both you and the others. What you also will get is a nice little colored Lego-like brick, which represents your colors. If assembled right, it shows your exact place on the Insights Discovery wheel, and it can do it for both your conscious and less conscious positions.

This little one below is mine.