The Programmer Who Sent Humans to the Moon
The woman in the photo is Dr. Margaret Hamilton, head of the team that built the software that carried Apollo 11 to our night luminary, the mission that took the first humans to the Moon in 1969. And that stack of binders? It's the software Margaret and her team wrote. What were the biggest challenges back when the profession of software engineer didn't even exist yet?
422022, Seen from Sixty Years Ago: What Did the Science Fiction Writers Get Right?
In the 1960s Isaac Asimov wrote a remarkable essay containing some astonishingly perceptive predictions. Around the same time, the first issue of the magazine Kosmos ran a similar piece collecting the ideas of Soviet science fiction writers on the subject. What did the writers get right, and where did their expectations fall flat?
43Boris Georgiev: The Art of Living and Art as Life
The life of the painter Boris Georgiev reads like a condensed history of the whole contradictory 20th century. He met some of the great figures of his time, among them Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi and Tagore. He left us his original paintings and something even more precious: an impressive, wise worldview in which life cannot be separated from art.
44The Strange Story of Bulgarian History
Time for the thrilling story of Bulgarian History! These young people love nothing more than debunking clichés. A few examples: – The new generations don't care about Bulgarian history. – Publishing is a dying trade with nothing in it for the young. – Patriotism has been irreversibly emptied of meaning after a spin through the centrifuge of politics. The Bulgarian History association is that likable group of young people who tour schools to charge children with the magic of history. You have surely come across some of their impressive books from recent years.
45Munch, The Scream, and a Short History of the Selfie
A century before the selfie became the pandemic before the pandemic, one of the most famous artists of our era, Edvard Munch, discovered photography and began producing a series of striking self-portraits. What could that possibly have to do with today's selfie mania? And how did our own face become our favorite image as mobile phones advanced?
46Humankind and the Cosmos, 50 Years On
These days we spend long hours staring at screens and rarely look up at the stars, literally and metaphorically. Assoc. Prof. Vasil Umlenski has worked as a professional astronomer for exactly half a century. We meet to talk about the stars, about a love for the sky, and about humanity's future in space, drawing on his long experience.
47Levski's Handwriting Comes Alive Online
Stefan Peev is a philologist who has also been working in typography for two decades. His impressive project, the first freely available digital font based on the handwriting of Vasil Levski, was presented recently. How was the font created? What will it be used for? And what makes the Apostle's letters so distinctive?
48Robots vs. Silodeys: The Story of Bulgaria's First Science Fiction Writer
In 1930, Georgi Iliev wrote the first Bulgarian science fiction novel. Instead of “robot,” he proposed the poetic word “silodey.” His life story is worthy of a film, though today his name is almost forgotten…
49The Earth Is Flat!
For more than two millennia we have been lied to that we live on a ball. It is time for the truth to come out! Today, when anyone online can say whatever they like, when access to information is unprecedented and general knowledge is shrinking in proportion, it is time to question the sixth-grade physics textbook. While you read… be careful not to fall off.
50Valeri Petrov: This Net Doesn't Connect Us—It Catches Us and Cuts Us Off from the Real World
“Despite the undeniable conveniences the internet offers, the virtual connection it establishes between people is fictitious, while the way it cuts us off from our actual neighbor or acquaintance is real and harmful.” Mercilessly relevant today, isn't it? Except that it was said in an interview by the unforgettable Valeri Petrov exactly 10 years ago, along with many other priceless words worth rereading…
