News / Polish media excited about bad article on Relativity Theory, published in a shady journal [27]

No, my model does not omit any important features, and you probably do not get something. As to my "mind too much fixed because of too much training in solving problems in physical mechanics" - this sounds really funny, like if you wanted to tell me that my mind is fossilized and I am narrow minded, but you were too gentle to say it straight on. :-)

I was about to let it go, because I do not need to win any brownie points. Remember, it was you who drew me into the discussion about £ągiewka, starting with this:


My explanations were not satisfactory to you for several reasons - one of them being the poor presentation in the text mode we use. Assuming that you were not just obstinate and you really wanted to learn something I took a risk and spent some time preparing a PDF file with plenty of sketches and formulas. I present there several variants of £ągiewka experiment, using alternative approaches - proving all the way that no conservation law was ever broken there. I also comment on the £ągiewka book "Energetyczna Natura Mechaniki".

This 771KB file, 21 pages, is stored in pdf-archive as collisions.pdf and is publicly accessible. They claim that their site is safe to use.

pdf-archive.com/2011/12/11/collisions/

News / Polish media excited about bad article on Relativity Theory, published in a shady journal [27]


No, no, no - gravity does not need to be present for reaction forces to appear. I already explained it. But let us try again.

...............................................|
...............................................| F(t), impact force, modelled as a gate ∏ of given height F0 and given duration T
m ..........................................\|/ (forget those filler dots, alignment problem)
O------------------x-------------------
......................./|\
........................| Reaction R, normal

F(t) can be defined as a difference of two step functions = F0 [u(t) - u(t-T)] or directly as
F(t) = 0 for t < 0
F(t) = 1 for 0 <= t <= T
F(t) = 0 for t > T, where T is a duration of the impulse

We could add gravity force at location of mass m, but it does not matter: imagine that all is turned 90 degrees around the slat and it lies flat on the table. The gravity would be then perpendicular to R and F, and it will be in static equilibrium with another reaction force, G say, the reaction of the table: G = mg. Therefore G would be immaterial. But the force R responds to F(t), not mg.

News / Polish media excited about bad article on Relativity Theory, published in a shady journal [27]


Yes it is, but forget the gravitational force. It is immaterial here. We could turn this device any way around and eliminate gravity if it causes us some problems. But the axis of rotation resists the impact of the striking ball and it "feels" some force acting upon it. To make it clear and obvious I suggested to reduce this problem to a problem of a beam simply supported, loaded with a mass at one end, and excited by sudden impact force.

But I suggest you to go first to my second solution - the one for a model of three balls - because it is simpler and clearer. Direct dealing with impact forces is much harder, because a proper modelling needs to be undertaken first.

News / Polish media excited about bad article on Relativity Theory, published in a shady journal [27]

True, it is a pity we cannot draw easily here.
But let me explain it the other way. This is nothing arbitrarily in adding reaction forces to systems with bonds ("systemy z więzami"). Based on the 3rd Newton theorem, such systems can be made bonds-free by removing the bonds and introducing instead reaction forces and torques, whenever applicable. In Polish this is called "uwalnianie się od więzów", and this is part of any course on classical mechanics - starting with statics and continuing to dynamics.

There are precise rules how to select direction of the reaction forces, or how many components a reaction force supposes to have in your system of reference.

Rule number 1: friction-less reaction force. No matter how smooth two bodies are, if they interact there is always a reaction (action=-reaction, remember?). But if we know that there is no friction involved than there is no tangential component present. In this case: the friction-less reaction force is always normal to the surface of the bonds.

Imagine a bead sliding over a wire of any shape you want. If there is no friction, the reaction force is always normal (perpendicular) to the wire at any given point.

Imagine a beam, supported on a wedge of a triangular section. the wedge is positioned on some bearings, so it slides over the support surface without friction. We call this kind of support "simply supported", or a "roller". The reaction force is directed normally to the beam (if you imagine the beam drawn as a horizontal line, the support as a little triangle with two rolls underneath) you can then erase the support and replace it by a vector R directed upwards.

A "pinned" support is again represented by a little triangle, but without rolls underneath, but kind of slashes //// instead (representing a floor; the support is embedded in the floor). Well, now the friction is a part of the game and the reaction force is no longer normal; there is also a tangential component present. In 2D cases (beams) you usually represent it as two mutually perpendicular components, in 3D cases - 3 components. I will stop here, you can find more in any standard book on classical mechanics, or internet of course :-) .

News / Polish media excited about bad article on Relativity Theory, published in a shady journal [27]

Corrections to my previous post about £agiewka problem
Slip of the tongue :


Actually the total energy, kinetic + potential, is conserved here. I was thinking about kinetic energy only. And obviously the momentum is not conserved; it changes with time.

The overstatement:


Actually I should have been more precise: If there are external forces then the momentum is not conserved, if there are external torques then the angular momentum is not conserved, if there are both forces and torques then neither the momentum nor the angular momentum is conserved.

Simplified approach, based on the elastic collision problem
The sketch of the solution I presented yesterday is still OK, but it is needlessly complicated, as I suspected yesterday. Here is another approach, but for a bit different setup involving three balls, rather than just two. This way I can reason within a category of elastic collisions. You may assume that balls m2 and m3 are affixed to both ends of the weightless slate. In this case the velocities u2 and u3 will be the same value-wise.

Before the collision:
O (m3 0)
|
|
|
|
x R ==>
|
|
|
|
O (m2 0) <===O (m1 v1)

After the impact
O (m3 u3) ==>
|
|
|
|
x ==> R
|
| r
|
|
O <==(m2 u2) O (m1 u1) =>

Since there is the reaction force R present, the momentum is not conserved. But there are no torques here, so the angular momentum (calculated with respect to the support) is conserved:

r m1 v1 = - r m1 u1 + r m2 u2 + r m3 u3

Kinetic energy is conserved:
1/2 m1 v1^2 = 1/2 m1 u1^2 + 1/2 m2 u2^2 + 1/2 m3 u3^2

Simplification assumption: m1 = m2 = m3
Velocity constraint: u2 = u3
Hence:
v1 = -u1 + 2 u3
v1^2 = u1^2 + 2 u3^2
Two equations, two unknown.
Solution: u1=1/3 v1; u2 = 2/3 v1; u3 = 2/3 v1

Conclusion: Contrary to what £agiewka and Gumuła said (long time ago), no rule of conservation of momentum is broken here at all. The momentum is simply not conserved here since it changes with time, due to existing reaction force R. So this is what they originally missed. I hear that they have withdrawn this early "thought experiment" of theirs from the web now.

Interesting modification of this problem would involve a spring inserted under the mass m3. The dots shown here are just space fillers, so that the balls m1 and m2 appear aligned. The hash signs represent a spring.

........................................O m1

m3 O=======x=======O m2
#
#
---------------------------------------

For this case the approach outlined in the previous post would have to be taken. The transient natural vibrations could be rather easily computed using Laplace transforms.

News / Polish media excited about bad article on Relativity Theory, published in a shady journal [27]


I was out partying a bit and I am going back there in half hour or so.

By providing the simple example of elastic collision I was trying to show - and I hope I did it quite convincingly - that perceived violation of physical laws are more often than not the outcome of a poor reasoning. And I am sure the same applies here to the lever/balls example.

Here is a quick sketch - untested and not tried.

The conservation laws only apply if there are no external forces or torques acting on the system. If there are some, nothing is conserved - meaning no physical quantity is constant and it should not ever remain constant. No constant energy, no constant angular momentum, no constant momentum. Example being - a free fall of a body in gravitational field where nothing is conserved. In this case, there is one external force - the reaction force at the axis of rotation.

If you break the entire problem into two subsystems: one - a striking ball, and two - the upper ball and the lever - you can look at it this way, for example:

Step 1: Model the action of the bottom ball by an external impact force F, applied to the bottom of the lever, of possibly rectangular or triangular shape, with a given height and width (microseconds). This is how we often model seismic data, or impact of certain type of machinery, such as presses or forging hammers. You can play with various parameters to match the real response of the system. Impact acceleration (or force) are available for various types of materials, relating speed and mass with impact forces for various Young elasticity modules of the interacting bodies (steel with steel, steel with bronze, etc).

Step 2: Free the "upper system" from bonds of the support, by introducing instead a reaction force R at the support. This is a standard approach to solving equations of classical dynamics of the rigid bodies, with bonds.This way the system is being converted to something like this:

| O
|
|
|
x==> R
|
| r = half arm of the lever
|
| <==F (impact force)
In general case 6 Newtonian scalar equations (or two 3D vector equations) are needed to solve a rigid body problem. Here the system will be reduced to two scalar equations (in the worst case -could be three, but I think two are adequate). Either a translational or angular acceleration could be then calculated, after the reaction force R is eliminated from one of those equations. From that the dynamic equation would need to be integrated (either analytically via Laplace method - because the force is impact type) or via numeric integration, to compute a function of velocity and displacement vs. time.

The bottom line is: this approach does not refer to conservation laws at all, because momentum, angular momentum and energy will likely change with time, so they are not conserved. But that does not mean that the conservation laws have been broken.

As I said - this is just one way of doing it. I'll think of possible simple ways tomorrow.

News / Polish media excited about bad article on Relativity Theory, published in a shady journal [27]

The device is a primitive converter of translational motion to a rotational one. It consists of a weightless lever simply supported at its centre

| O (m 0) => (m u)
|
|
|
x
|
|
|
| <==O (m v)

There are two balls, which are actually suspended on weightless twines, thus forming two pendulums. This is made so in order to eliminate effects of possible friction. The top ball is at rest, barely touching the lever. The bottom one strikes the bottom part of the lever. What happens now?

The claim is that after the collision the initial energy E=mv^2 is equally divided between both balls, and that the conservation of energy holds true:

E = 1/2 m v^2 = 1/2 m u^2 + 1/2 m u^2
where u is a velocity of any of the balls.
Hence
v^2 = 2 u^2
and u = v / √ 2
But that leads to violation of conservation of momentum:
m v = m u + m u = 2 m u = 2 m v / √ 2
hence
1 = 2 / √ 2, which is nonsense
Ergo, £agiewka and Gumuła claim that the conservation of momentum is broken in this "experiment".

News / Polish media excited about bad article on Relativity Theory, published in a shady journal [27]


As I said before, his bumper seems to work somehow, but nobody really knows how effective it could be. I did not bother with any detailed analysis, but it seems to me that all conservation laws are fine here, nothing is really broken. If he was bumped from his patent by a man from Cambridge, this is their own fault (his and his scientific adviser) for claiming ridiculous things at first.

I actually went to their own site trying to get access to one of their papers (not the media announcements), but I have trouble accessing them.

The młody fizyk blog, has several articles on the subject, and some references to their papers. I'll see to it later.

mlodyfizyk.blox.pl

[Scroll down to the very bottom to see the latest entries from the December this year]

News / Polish media excited about bad article on Relativity Theory, published in a shady journal [27]


In the paper. I thought the details would be boring to most people here so I did not elaborate. Would you like to see my arguments nevertheless? Privately or publicly? If yes, give me few hours, I still need to get some more sleep.

Now you are really confused. The £agiewka's story has nothing to do with Einstein and that damned holly cow, as you put it. His demonstrations were dismissed by some witnesses because both sides were confused: those doing the convincing and those trying to refute the explanations. In my humble opinion the man has a wrong adviser who published wrong papers, referring to wrong data sets - like trying to explain a Volvo accident using video of a Ford crash. I saw that last year. Made no sense.

However, there is nothing special and mysterious there. No one is breaking any principles of physics. Again, I may try to explain it later if you wish. But forget about all those hurra-patriotic stories in the newspapers. They mean nothing.


Wait. Things need to be sorted out, repeated, repeated, repeated ad nausea. I refer you again to those two links which list a multitude of various experiments that try to prove or break various aspects of both relativity theories: special and general:

What is the experimental basis of Special Relativity: desy.de/user/projects/Physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html

David Mattingly, Modern tests of Lorentz Invariance: relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2005-5/index.html

The Opera experiment done by the physicists from Gran Sasso laboratory need to be repeated by the same team and various other teams around the world. Patience, patience.

In meantime another team from the same laboratory proved via their Icarus experiment quite the opposite than the Opera team. Again: patience and perseverance are recommended to all of us. So far no one came with a better theory than SRT.

Life / Sweets in Shoes - old Polish tradition on December 6 (Mikolaj)? [13]


I misread the statement of the previous poster, wwwpolyglotocom, and was trying to explain why the "mikołajki" tradition is more known in countryside than in the cities. Cancel on both accounts, since I really have no data to support such a claim, other then a gut feeling. Sorry for that.

Life / Sweets in Shoes - old Polish tradition on December 6 (Mikolaj)? [13]


Traditions are usually observed in countryside, not in the cities.
Courtesy of Polish Wikipedia (The English one focuses on other parts) and my hasty translation:

Saint Nicholas (Polish: Św. Mikołaj), Bishop of Myra, because of the deeds attributed by the legend (including distributing all his property to the poor), was the prototype of a dealer of gifts to children. Depicted as an old man with a magnificent beard, often in the miter and crosier, with a sack of gifts and a bunch of rods in his hand. He brings gifts to good children (usually sweets) and rods to the naughty, as the warning, on December 6 (the anniversary of the Saint's death).

(…)
One legend has it that a man who fell into poverty, decided to sell his three daughters to a brothel. When the bishop learned of this he threw three purses of money in the chimney at night. They fell into stockings and the shoes that these daughters have put at the fireplace to dry. Hence, in countries where it is common to use fireplaces, children put their shoes and socks near the fireplace. Where fireplaces are not used, St. Nicolas quietly slips gifts under the pillows of sleeping babies.

(...)
In most of Poland it is Sw. Mikołaj that brings gifts on December 6.
In Wielkopolska, Kujawy, Kashubia and Western Pomerania gifts for Christmas traditionally brings "Gwiazdor", in Małopolska - Little Angel, in Upper Silesia - Little Jesus. Which I did not know; in my family Św. Mikołaj worked double shift.

Life / Graffiti problem in Poland [38]

I agree with:
Graffiti is a bad thing and should not be tolerated.
Vandalism is a bad thing and should not be tolerated.

I am sorry to see both of them all over Poland.

However I disagree with your skewed logic here:


, or more general:
"My wife is X [has big tits for example] therefore all Polish women are X [have big tits]".

With all due respect to your wife - her opinion, look and behaviour mean very little to me and to 30-something millions of other Poles. You cannot draw any universal conclusions, involving all Polish women, based on her alone, five other of her friends, or even 10,000 other Polish women.

You, and some people like you, need to take a brush course in logic. Have you heard anything about universal quantification vs. existential quantification? Here they are, easy to remember: denoted ∀  and ∃ .

The expression ∀ n ∈ N P(n) denotes the universal quantification of the predicate P(n). Translated into plain English it means: For all n, such that n is an element of the set N, n satisfies a predicate P(n). A predicate is a function of one variable, answering either true of false. For example, if P(n) is defined as 2 * n > 10, it will answer FALSE for all n <=5, and TRUE otherwise.

Consider for example this: ∀ n ∈ set-of-all-Polish-women-married-to-a-foreigner (n thinks-that-her-husband-denigrades-Poland). Obviously, this predicate is FALSE for the entire set. It is true for your wife, roca, it is true for croggers's wife (assuming that you both are telling the truth) but its is definitively not true for all: ∀ n ∈ set-of-all-Polish-women-married-to-a-foreigner.

Capisci? So stay away from all universal statements, like this: "polish women are like that", because such statements are more likely than not to be definitely FALSE.

On the other hand, you might want to use so-called existential quantifier, "there exists", denoted by ∃.
The expression ∃ n ∈ N P(n) denotes existential quantification satisfying the predicate P(n). Translated into English, it means: There is some (or there exists) n, such that n is an element of the set N, that the predicate P(n) is true.

For example, ∃ n ∈ set-of-all-Polish-women-married-to-a-foreigner (n thinks-that-her-husband-denigrades-Poland) is TRUE, because we know that there is at least one such woman (either roca's or clogger's wife) who behaves in the prescribed way.

Language / Speaking with wrong Polish case endings? [94]

Chrzaszcz
In the "politically incorrect" novel "In desert and wilderness" by H. Sienkiewicz, one of the lesser characters, Kali - a son of a powerful tribal chief - speaks solely with infinitives. Very few readers care to notice that all the characters in the novel supposedly speak English, so the Kali's conjugation-less way of speaking should not be funny at all. But it still is - to children, as well as to some self deprecating adults, who like to point out Polish hypocrisy by quoting one of Kali's rules of ethics: "Jak Kali ukraść krowa to dobrze, jak Kalemu ukraść krowa to żle".

You should be fine, Chrząszcz, do not worry. Poles are not French, we appreciate your effort put into learning Polish.

Language / chmura/y vs obłok(i) [6]


I just suddenly had this association: See how the word "obłoki" is used in this "Krywań" poem by Kazimierz Przerwa-Tetmajer.

As a premium you can listen to a song "Krywaniu" performed by the highlander's band "Goranie"
youtube.com/watch?v=ISywjwziL50

This is a highlanders' melody, anonymous I think (Polish, Slovak?), made quite popular in Poland by "Skaldowie" Group in 1960s.

Law / Search Engine Optimisation in Poland - the same SEO rules apply? [7]

That could be. This probably very much depends on the server's profile. This is one thing if you want to sell some products, possibly appealing to a local population, and another if you want to provide some international services. My experience with a pro publico bono server, which I had run for 10 years or so, was different:

+ Location was irrelevant, traffic would come from Asia, Europe, America
+ SEO was irrelevant, I did not bother with keywords, I did not submit my site to any engine, I was too busy working on the content. Nevertheless, my site was soon indexed and it was quite highly rated.

+ Visitors coming from google search were usually random, one-time visitors, who mistook my site by something else, or who did not know how to precisely specify their search directive.

+ Most, if not only, valuable traffic was coming via references from other, somewhat related, web pages

Life / How many ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN POLISH in Poland? [40]

Images of Greek Catholic Churches, Bieszczady

pbase.com/xyrz/greek_catholic_churches

Language / Druszlak or cedzak? [6]


pyra (Great Poland), kartofel (from German), barabola (Lwów), kompera (£emko - Beskid), grula (górale - Eastern Podhale), bulwa (Kashubian), perka (from Peru), rzepa (Western Podhale, Orawa).

So it was not just the fight between ziemniak and kartofel. :-). I can confirm that pyra and grula are definitely still in use.

Other examples that I remember:
- szlafrok => podomka = dressing-gown
- nakastlik (from German: Nacht (night + something)), apparently still in use => szafka nocna = bedside table, bedside cabinet

Life / How many ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN POLISH in Poland? [40]


Very reliable source of information, coming from one (imaginary?) Polka. :-)

Just in case people got wrong ideas about Orthodoxy in Poland from other Polkas, here is something to chew upon:

Aside from some number of the Orthodox Church faithfuls, there are about 50,000 faithfuls belonging to Greek Catholic Church, and specifically to Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a.k.a. United Church (going also by five other names) in Poland.

[Look it up on internet about so-called Brześć Union, about centuries of rivalry between the Orthodox and Greek Catholics in various parts of Eastern Poland, about different attitudes of Soviets towards both churches and about status quo.]

In short, 6%-8% of total population of Ukraine claim to belong to UGCC. There are total 6-10 millions of UGCC faithfuls worldwide, making it the second most populous catholic church, after the RCC. Main distribution: Ukraine, Poland, and any countries where Ukrainian emigrants have gone - USA, Canada, Australia, etc.

In Poland, there are two UGCC metropolia: Przemyśl-Warsaw (32,000, 85 parishes) and Wrocław-Gdańsk (21,000, 57 parishes).
Rusyns a.k.a. Rusnaks, a.k.a. £emkos mostly adhere to UGCC or to Ruthenian Catholic Church. Eastern Carpathians (Beskid, Bieszczady) are still full of chapels, churches, cemeteries, and crosses - witnessing to their culture. Due to forceful resettlement of £emkos in 1946 a significant percentage of Ukrainians/£emkos currently live in Northern Poland (Pomerania and Masuria) - away from their roots.

And last but not least: Armenian Catholic Church. Great history, but not many of them left now. They are under the direct control of Vatican, more or less. In 2009 all small Armenian Catholic parishes have been liquidated and the three so-called territorial parishes have been created instead:

- South parish, with seat in Gliwice, covering the southern belt of Poland
- Central parish, with seat in Warsaw
- Northern parish with seat in Gdańsk

Just for comparison with UGCC, Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church (independent of Russian hierarchy) has over 500 thousand faithful (including diaspora - about 600 thousand) - so about 10 times as many as UGCC, residing mainly in the area of ​​the former province of Białystok, and especially in the districts: Białystok, Bielsko, Hajnówka, Siemiatycze and Sokółka. In 2010, PAOC had 423 temples. The church is a member of the World Council of Churches and the Polish Ecumenical Council.

Language / Negation in Polish sentences [12]


Yes, and poorly done too, I realize. I did not have anything already translated at hand, so I patched it quickly.


We once talked a bit about Douglas R. Hofstadter. In his book "Le Ton bon de Marot" he played a bit with translation of the Lem's "How the world was saved" because he was intrigued by absurdity of the premise of the story, leading to "both a philosophical and linguistic joke".

He says: "I had been told that the English translations by Michael Kandel were brilliant beyond description. (...) I wanted to read it, but on the other hand, I didn't want to read Kandel's translation of it (which I easily found in print), since I thought that translating it would be an interesting challenge, and I didn't want to plant any ideas in my own mind"

Here is a fragment of his translation, which you can directly compare with the Kandel's one I quoted before:


He then compares it with a rendition of his Polish friend Marek £ugowski, who curiously extended the capability of the Machine to making s-things, in addition to n-things. But that's entirely different topic, and I may type it in later in a separate thread, if you wish.

Well, Lem was part of our growing up educational process, and his books were readily available in Polish. But buying anything foreign was practically beyond means of an average student those days. And yes, some hidden anti-communist messages were suspected to be buried in Lem's prose too, so we saw them everywhere... :-)

Language / Negation in Polish sentences [12]


I just could not stop myself from quoting this fine piece about double negation from Stanisław Lem, Cyberiada - Jak Ocalał Świat, How the World was Saved:


polonica.ru/node/280

But here's the third order: Machine! Do Nothing!
Machine did not move at all for a long time. Klapaucjusz began rubbing his hands with satisfaction, but Trurl said:
- What do you mean? You told her not to do anything, so she is not doing anything!
- Not true. I told her to do Nothing, and that is something else.
- Something too! To do Nothing and nothing to do - are the same thing.
- Not at all! She supposed to do Nothing, and yet she has not done anything, so I won. Nothing in fact, my buddy smart alec, is not such a mere nothing, a product of laziness and non-activity, but it is open and active Nothingness, it is the perfect, the ubiquitous and the highest Nonbeing in its own person!

- Stop bothering the Machine! - cried Trurl, but suddenly a bronze voice was heard:
- Stop arguing in such a moment! I know what is Nonbeing, Nothingness, which is Nothing, because these things belong to the key letter n, as being Non-existent. You better take a look at the world for the last time, because soon it will not exist ...


- Rendered by Michael Kandel

Food / Food hygiene in Poland [60]


Yet I love modern Tapas: the presentation, the size. Mostly because I hate wasting food.

Things change with time. Fishmongers used to wrap fish in newspapers. There is famous Kensington Market in downtown Toronto, where you can buy all sort of fresh food. I have not been there for ages, but my first impression of the hygiene was not that positive: the view and the smell was overpowering. Now I hear that this is a tourist attraction.


I saw once a cook in Toronto exiting the washroom with her latex gloves still on. Makes you think..

Food / Food hygiene in Poland [60]


During some periods of PRL a mandatory appetizer was added to every beer - usually an old desiccated or mouldy cheese with parsley. This is how the State cared for the sobriety of the nation.

A typical draft beer, sold at bars and restaurants of railway stations, where people spent endless hours waiting for connecting trains - "piwo dworcowe" - had more or less the same slightly sour taste everywhere, occasionally locally mixed with pugnacious soapy flavour or a relish of the bottom of the sauerkraut barrel. In the food cabinet at the bar other standard appetizers were on display:

- Śledzik po japońsku, a herring a'la Japanese. It was a half of the boiled egg, wrapped by a piece of herring, served on a bed of vegetable salad, drenched in mayonnaise. When fresh, it was even quite tasty, but since those cabinets were not refrigerated the look of this delicacy was not very inviting after few hours on display.

- Tatar "inwalida", beef tartare with one raw yolk and other various stuff on top. The word "invalid" refers to the fact that the poor Tatar had only one egg left - (one would say "one nut" in English, but then it would not be funny). The same presentation issue.

- Nóżki w galarecie, a calf-foot or pork-foot jelly. Prepared often on site. A preferred culinary component of a set known as "lorneta w meduzie" - binoculars in medusa (jellyfish). The role of binoculars was played by the two 100 gram glasses of vodka, which a person will consume, together with foot jelly, for his supper.

Language / Pronunciation of Name 'Mieczyslaw'? [16]

True, the old actors and the people from beyond the Bug river are all dead now. For them the dark L was the natural way of speech. Listen to this:

- A no podejdż do płota.
- A po co?
- Podejdź bo i ja podchodzę. A teraz rób co ja robię.
- Zdjąłem. Tylko nie wiem przed czym..
- Na okoliczność. że na nasze głupoty koniec nadchodzi.
- Ano, zdałoby się Kazik.
- Płacz Władek, nie wstydź si. Bo jak prawdziwy chłop płacze to musi być swięto.
- Oj musi, musi.
- Widzisz?

- Well walk up to the fence.
- And for what?
- Walk up because I walk up. Now do what I do.
- I took it off. Just I do not know what for ..
- For the occasion that our stupidity is coming to the end.
- That would do well, Kazik.
- Cry Wladek, do not be ashamed. For if a real man is crying there must be a holiday.
- Oh, it must, it must.
- You see?

Language / Pronunciation of Name 'Mieczyslaw'? [16]

Myeh cheese suave - sounds almost acceptable
Myeh chise suave - this sounds even better

Tested using a synthetic voice of Google translate

News / Polish media excited about bad article on Relativity Theory, published in a shady journal [27]

Disapprovers and Correctors of Special Theory of Relativity come in bundles. Not necessarily Polish. Most of those are pseudo-scientists or maniacs, as stated above.
Editors of scientific journals, or even popular scientific bloggers are flooded by letters like this:

I also thought about a connection between the recent neutrino (yes, the tiny almost massless fairy - not the heavy neutron) experiments, that supposed to break the SR Theory, and some bored science editor of a Polish newspaper trying hard to break the "good" news.

But to put everything in perspective: there are thousands of experiments around the world attempting to prove or disprove various aspects of Special and General Theory of Relativity, or improve on some numerical truth ranges. Not in the sense of maniacal attempts to break something that actually works well or to earn fame for themselves. In contrary, these are serious experiments done in the name and service of science. Two of the following survey papers are worthy to glance at:

What is the experimental basis of Special Relativity: desy.de/user/projects/Physics/Relativity/SR/experiments.html
David Mattingly, Modern tests of Lorentz Invariance: relativity.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrr-2005-5/index.html


Nice, I enjoyed it.
But Physics seems to offer more opportunities for charlatans and maniacs. I just came across "Laboratorium Energii Subtelnych", (Laboratory of Subtle Energies)

labes.edu.pl/index.php?id=51. It would take several hours to describe their Psychotronic products and services, such as :
Little Wishes Machine - an aid to learning the basis of psychotronics and first experiments with it
Friendly Little Lamp - an anti-depressant emitter

But nothing is free there:

Price list of services provided by the Laboratory of Subtle Energies
Consulting Services:
Personal consulting - 140 PLN
Business consulting - 140 PLN/hour
Radiesthetic Services:
Indoor expertise - 5.5 PLN/m2
Building plots expertise - 2 PLN/m2
Energetic cleanup - 500 PLN
Installation of a standard anti-radiation system - 300 PLN
Installation of a stabilization system for indoor energy - 1000 PLN
Development and installation of a custom anti-radiation system - Negotiable, depending on the development cost
Access - According to the official rates
Other Services:
Examination of an extrasensoric capacity - 700 PLN
Developing of products and technologies - Negotiable, depending on the cost of development
Custom Services - Negotiable, depending on the cost of development

Genealogy / sussolow, county lvov [2]


After some search I found Gazeta Lwowska, 1882, nr 46, [jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl/dlibra/dlibra/plain-content?id=9516] , published in Polish, where they mention a place called "Susułów" a.k.a "Susołów" near "Tuligłowy" near "Hruszów".

A next step took me to [wikimapia.org/10747479/pl/Susułów]
(World/Ukraine/Lvivska/Rozvadiv, 6 km from the centre of Rozvadiv, Розвадів)
After zooming out few times you will also notice other villages mentioned in "Gazeta Lwowska" - Tuligłowy and Hruszów. Next zoom out will give you quite a good orientation where Susułów is: North-East by North from Drohobycz, Ukrainian Дрогóбич .

News / Priests are paid by the Gov't in Poland. [86]


I remembered it from somewhere and it bothered me so I consulted uncle Google. Onufry!!!

News / Priests are paid by the Gov't in Poland. [86]

Well, the CC proposed a voluntary "social taxation" in Poland, 1% if I remember. Some economists think that this would take out more from the state coffers than under the current model.

News / Priests are paid by the Gov't in Poland. [86]


Not yet, but I am on my way. Sorry, I missed some of of your answers. I am taking back "the fairy tales". :-)