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John F. Ptak
From 1985-2003 I operated a bricks-and-mortar bookstore dedicated to the history of science. The stores were located primarily in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., with a short excursion to Old Town Alexandria, Va., and a warehouse in Silver Spring Maryland. The store's website has been in operation in one form or another since 1998, and it is now the principle venue for business. The blog associated with the online store is pretty mature at this point, with about 1.5 million words and thousands of posts, for good or ill.
Interests: art, math, history of science and technology; connections between/among physics, literature; the found-surreal; outsider art and logic; discrete ephemera.
Recent Activity
On Flying Machines--Scientific American, 1848
Posted Feb 4, 2021 at JF Ptak Science Books
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Resistance in Czechoslovakia, 1943 (Full Reprint of Scarce Pamphlet)
Posted Jan 29, 2021 at JF Ptak Science Books
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The Not-Unbearable Extra-sub-Heaviness of Light (1876)
Posted Jan 5, 2021 at JF Ptak Science Books
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Found-Poetry in a Technical Work on Bubbles (1896)
Posted Jan 3, 2021 at JF Ptak Science Books
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"The Fine Sport" of Flying, 1893.
Posted Jan 3, 2021 at JF Ptak Science Books
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A Note on Explaining Impressionism as a Result of Astigmatism (1872)
Posted Dec 23, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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The Poetry of High-Victorian Scientific Article Titles (1884)
JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post (Overall Post 5115) I found an interesting article by Francis Galton in an 1884 issue of Nature magazine, the polymath addressing a device called "the Identiscope", which sounds a bit like Victorian facial recognition.... Continue reading
Posted Dec 20, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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The Color of Clouds as a New Determinant (1880)
Posted Dec 20, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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Mr. Burns, X-Rays, and the How to Answer a Telephone Call in 1877
Posted Dec 20, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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The "Aye Aye", Newt Rings, and the Chromatic Octave--Compelling Bits from "Nature" (1870).
JF Ptak Science Books (Really) Quick Post I was writing a bit on the C.G. Foster paper on Fizeau's experiments on Newton's Rings, found in an early volume of the great journal Nature (volume 2, June 9, 1870) In tidying... Continue reading
Posted Dec 19, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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"We Need a Stroke of Genius." (RPF, 1946)
Posted Dec 19, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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The Big Bang Monkey and "Gasoline Alley"
Posted Dec 19, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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Thought Machines and the Revenge of the Atoms
Posted Dec 3, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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"Telephone" Calls from Tomorrowland--or, Weighing Antique Surprise
Posted Dec 3, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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A Warning from the Sky (April 1945)
Posted Nov 27, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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Ancient Books and Manuscripts, Writing, and Writing Instruments
Posted Nov 23, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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Albert Robida, Visionary
Posted Nov 18, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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A Note on Reverseness--Time
JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post I was working on a paper by H.C.Corben on time dilation ("Time Dilation Effects in Space Travel" 1959) and the clock paradox and thought about just time moving backwards, in whole or in part,... Continue reading
Posted Nov 18, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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Another Episode in the History of Blank and Empty Things
Posted Nov 17, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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1.8 Million Planes and 2 Million Tanks (1918)
Posted Nov 17, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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"The Perfect Smoke Column"—the New Miracle of Electronics, 1952
Posted Nov 17, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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Worse than "Science Jokes": Songs of Biology (1945)
Posted Nov 12, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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The Beauty of Simple, Tiny Windows (1940)
Posted Nov 7, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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Radical and "Socialistic" Ideas of 1939 Mainlined, Mainstreamed, and Main-Streeted
Posted Nov 7, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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Cutaway View of the Cockpits of the Hawker Hurricaine and Messerschmidt (1942)
Posted Oct 14, 2020 at JF Ptak Science Books
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