The short answer: Chemistry in space. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? A completely unbiased answer would be: “Yes”. But in all seriousness, for me personally, this is indeed the case. In my view, astrochemistry abides by the abstract. Weird chemistry. Chemistry that, to the novice, makes absolutely no sense. In a sense it constitutes a “chemical objet … Continue reading What is astrochemistry?

Mathematical Curiosities by Alfred S. Posamentier & Ingmar Lehmann I promise not to tell a lie. I found this book a bit frustrating to read. The frustration stems from the fact that half of the time I was mesmerized by the mathematical curiosities promised by the title while the other half of the time I … Continue reading Mathematical Curiosities: A Treasure Trove of Unexpected Entertainments

In January this year I set myself high goals. Maybe even lofty ones. Some I have managed to achieve splendidly, others... not so much. One of my resolutions in the New Year was to allot time every Sunday to write for the purposes of this website-blog-thinga-majigg. This essay has turned out to be rather cumbersome, … Continue reading Reevaluations of the adjunct vagabond

Women in Science: 50 fearless pioneers who changed the world by Rachel Ignotofsky Fact #1. The history of scientific discovery is a vast sausage fest, layered with facial hair of varying majesty. Fact #2. Historically, the scientific contributions of the double-X-chromosomed half of humanity have often been disregarded and even discredited in lieu of the chauvinistic status … Continue reading Women in Science: 50 fearless pioneers who changed the world

The Alien franchise is among the most successful sci-fi franchises ever spawned out of Hollywood. It even commingled with the Predator series (famously through one camera shot of a Xenomorph´s skull in the Predator´s spaceship in Predator 2) allowing for Hollywood to exploit our obsessions for details with a series of video games and an … Continue reading Science of the Alien franchise I – Xenomorphic blood

The Quantum Enigma by Bruce Rosenblum & Fred Kuttner Quantum theory is the most successful theory of our time. No question. Every prediction it has portended by its rigorous mathematics has been experimentally verified. And even though it contains leagues of strenuous calculations that only the formally initiated (mathematics, physics and some chemistry graduates) can … Continue reading The Quantum Enigma

I think it was about time to start writing again. For my website that is. I've been keeping myself busy with writing postdoc applications and preparing my teaching schedule for the coming semester which includes one half of a single course. This means my teaching workload will be a mere quarter of last semester‘s. (Yay!). … Continue reading Reading and writing habits

The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios I loved this book! No segue necessary. I really really loved this book. The reason is probably because I‘m probably at the epicenter of target audiences. I‘m a teacher and a scientist and I love science fiction and comic book.... movies. I‘m really sorry, but I‘ve never been … Continue reading The Physics of Superheroes

Seemingly, the X-Men (or rather the original authors of the X-Men tales) are natural law breakers of the natural laws. Given many of their departures from the physical bounds that most of us (who have not succumbed to genetic mutation) still adhere to, I can sympathize with the hostility their kind is often shown by … Continue reading Magneto-dium leviosa

*spoiler alert* *duh* Iron Man 2 is truly ridiculous. If anything, I barely know where to start with this movie. There is just so much dodgy science that it makes your head spin. In terms of characters, story line and you know, the stuff that’s kind of important to keep the audience interested and invested … Continue reading The day Iron Man fixed his heart, but broke mine