A sampling of what some folks have said about this blog, and a collection of notes and notices and appearances elsewhere:
- CONTACT: [email protected]
The "Sham Paris" post appeared on the Le Monde blogs page, here.
There was a nice link in the Friday "THe Corner" section of The National Review for my post on POW Camp Music http://www.nationalreview.com/corner
Very nice tweeted review ("phenomenal, amazing pics") of my post "Fitzcarraldo Deux: on France's Monumental Overland Ship Railway, at the Break of Doom" (here).
Smithsonian.com, on the legal wrangles in the U.S. over Mein Kampf, here
My "History of the Future" appeared in the September 2014 issue of MENSA Bulletin
A number of small contributions have made it into teh delightful Journal of Improbable research. http://www.improbable.com/
My blog post on what Frankenstein's philosophical monster read was linked on Lapham's Quarterly Roundtable.
The post on the "Sham Paris" constructed to fool and be bombed by the Germans in WWI has been widely shared by the French site for Slate magazine.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote that my submission (a catalog of an Imaginary Museum) to a writing contest he was judging was "Brilliant". (I was surprised, too.) Read about it here in the short story "Sit Down and Write Some Blues", by Patti Digh on her blog 37days, here. Some of the entries appear in the section, Museum of the Imaginary and the Impossible. The entry didn't win, as it was off-topic.
Appeared in the "Week in Review", The New York Times (12 March 2010) Must Reads
Linked in an article in Technology Review "Das Magazin fuer Innovation"
Nice, highly-visited repost at Le Point.
Nice appearance too at Le Figaro.fr
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2011/11/07/01016-20111107ARTFIG00485-comment-la-france-a-tente-de-batir-un-faux-paris-en-1918.php
"Ptak's blog so uncommonly spellbinding is that it is as much a work of imagination as it is historical, scientific and philosophical research. with illustration at its heart." And "And thank god for the internet, because John Ptak's blog is what the internet was invented for." Pretty nice appreciations from online version of the UK print mag Varoom! Illustration Culture Society
Blog of the day at Counterpunch.
Nice mention today in the Scientific American blog regarding the first photograph of a smell. (There have been many others since this first.)
Great review of the week at The Guardian.co.uk
American Physical Society News
This blog has appeared frequently more than 125 times in top-25 sites boingboing.net, jezebel.com and IO9.com "Excellent" --Jezebel.com
An old story in the Washington Post, from 1999:
Posts from this blog have appeared more than 60 times in the delightful and informative boingboing.net site.
Appeared in the Huffington Post 4 August 2010 (for my 1945 atomic bomb poll)
Appeared on IO9.com with 400,000+ views of my post on the possible invasion routes to America, 1942 (300k+ for IO9 alone). "Amazing collection of cosmological maps..." IO9.com
Appeared in the 6 April The Economist (for my Toilet Paper as a Social Medium post)
Appeared in the 12 March 2012 issue of Discovery News blog for the 19th Century flying Saucer patent story. http://news.discovery.com/space/real-flying-saucer-plans-date-back-to-19th-century-120321.html
Nice appearance in The Long Now for a simple chronological list of computers constructed 1930-1988.
"Wonderful" http://gizmodo.com/a-map-of-the-mile-thick-ice-sheet-that-made-modern-manh-1506501057
Appeared in the 30 March 10 "Beyond the Beyond" section of the digital WIRED magazine (for my post on Edgar Poe and Computers).
Appeared in BlueshiftBlog "Weekly Awesomeness Roundup" (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) for the Visual Chronology of Cosmologies post.
"John Ptak's blog is a treasure trove of unjustly obscure historical oddities in science and technology..."--Cocktail Party Physics
Tangled Mind: I'm sure those of my readers with actual Employment will not be at all interested in the Ptak Science Books blog (syndicated on LJ as ptak_science). Others, especially those curious individuals who are unable to resist the urge to click an intriguing link, will be drawn into a fully-illustrated seething maelstrom of SHEER FASCINATION.
Widely distributed on the website UrbaNews.com.fr here.
" JF Ptak Science Books, tireless unearthers of the antique and celebrators of the curious, have done a bang-up job with their latest post:.. CHOW
"...the very fine Ptak Science Books website. If you've got a few hours to surf around, go for it--the guy's a genius", Historum

"A splendid postage over at Ptak Science Books gives us some compelling seventeenth-century religious nicknames."
Leonardo Museo Scientifico Interattivo Virtuale
Included my chronology of particle physics in an article there.
A great review from Wunderkind (auto-translated from Spanish):
"Some time ago I have the small and insignificant theory that the Internet is giving way to generations of varied and colorful cabinet of wonders, places where there has been renewed passion for the curious, the unusual, unique. I do not mean that the bug is unusual fascination with something new, just the opposite, but that means, by virtue of their comprehensiveness and immediacy, has facilitated the movement and above all, has promoted the need for exchange.
"Well, certainly John Ptak's blog is a place. Ptak Science Books, far from being a site devoted exclusively to scientific references or history of science, as one might assume from its title, would be rather a place for visual archeology. Throughout this archival underwriting year (there are, of course, very different ways of archiving) play with the shiny leaves absurd categories like "History of Blank, Empty and Missing Things", "Things-out-of-Place Department", "Bad ideas "," Strange Things in the Sky Department "and many others, equally fascinating."
Small mention for "Electronic Beds, Odors and other Future Grotesques" in Stuttgarter-Zeitung
This blog appeared on Express/Belgum (express.be)
"a fully-illustrated seething maelstrom of SHEER FASCINATION. I think I happened upon the site about four hours ago. In those four hours I have read about WWII infographics; Beethoven's last and weirdest composition; the use of blank space in early woodcuts; manuals for how to be a well-behaved Girl; salvage rates for bullets in Europe, 1944; how rare it is to see a non-symbolic view beyond a window in Renaissance art; plaques designed to convey information to whoever's reading them 10,000 years from now; future hair trends as shown on classic pulp SF covers ."--http://peteyoung.livejournal.com/friends
"Magnificent": "Los he encontrado en la magnífica página Ptak Science Books...." Pasa la Vida.
".. one of the Web's most reliable unearthers of historical curiosities"-- Chow.com
"Fascinating" --Kottke.org
Studio (Italy)
Nice treatment of my post on Sham Paris at the French UrbaNews.fr
Nice appreciation on the Gizmodo.UK site, here.
"Ptak Science Books rotar alltid upp intressanta saker..." ("...always the source/root of interesting things...") My Markup
"...a fantastic resource for charts, maps, diagrams and historical analysis..." Burrito Justice
"...this essential website..." --Bloke and Coke
Nice pick-up in the Swiss NZZ (Neue Zuercher Zeitung) blog for the post on building with atomic bombs.
Wonderful note from Heavy Table about my Scary Color-Steampunk Food Photo, "sandwich loaf guest stars at the great national science book blog..."
"It is chiefly in this respect that Derrida's lesson in the otherwise largely dated Spectres of Marx remains most valuable, for Socialism is one such future. But so are the past futures of science fiction, of Futurism, of architecture and design, of science proper. John Ptak's brilliant blog Science Books is an acute and at times seemingly near-exhaustive catalogue of many of these branches of hauntology" --Bat, Bean, Beam, a Weblog of Memory and Technology.
"... muy recomendado su blog..." El Baul de Josete Blog
"(Ptak's) insatiable passion for cataloging historical scientific oddities makes the blog an absolutely fascinating read..." Cocktail Party Physics
Our "Fat Art" piece was described as "the Literary Item of the Milennium" on dave Barry's blog.
"Esta curiosa imagen —que el genial John Ptak ha rescatado en su rincón de la web— fue publicada en un especial navideño de la revista LIFE magazine en 1954...." ("This curious image "that the great John Ptak has rescued in his corner of the Web" was published in a special Christmas magazine LIFE magazine in 1954") --Technologia Obsoleta
"Los he encontrado en la magnífica página Ptak Science Books en donde también han incluido una serie de retratos y autorretratos muy curiosos.--Pasa la Vida
Kindle Reviews used my "fascinating" Dr. Seuss' 236 Words post as a jumping-off point for an article on the future of reading and getting kids to read.
"...rapidly becoming an invaluable store of esoteric images and scientific false starts, particularly of the martial kind."--Socialism and or Barbarism.
"...the commentary is as good as the books...Ptak has a keen eye, an apparently inexhaustible library of fascinating obscurities, and a dry wit.." http://nancylebov.livejournal.com
"Marvelous" Continuity in Architecture
"That blog has some other wonderful infographics too with Ptak's delightful savoring of them..." Metafilter
"The blog associated with Ptak's online science bookstore is an absolutely fascinating, frequently-updated tour through historical, social, and scientific miscellany extracted from unusual books in the collection of the author, John Ptak." posted by Rumple on Jun 23, 2009 - 5 comments
"John Ptak runs an interesting blog where he explores the “History of Ideas–unusual connections in the history of science and mathematics with the arts and social history.” His musings and reflections, his use of striking imagery, and his grounded historical approach make for some enjoyable online reading.” Neuroanthropology
"A repository of wonderfully eclectic science and technology illustrations..." Too Many Interests
"Get your lazy a** to science books." Slapclap.com
Featured on Dark Roasrted Blend’s "World’s Most Curious Ephemera" Section
"And the best part: John Ptak has a blog. His posts (he calls them "essays") explore "the history of ideas -- unusual connections in the history of science and mathematics with the arts and social history." It's a fascinating foray into the world of arcane science history, complete with little-known details and anecdotes and some truly stunning images." Physics Buzz/Physics Central
"Wonderful"-- Cincinnati Mercantile Library
"I check in every day for correction, to see just how far astray the human mind can wander. After that, nothing that happens in my public library work seems extraordinary, and the world seems calm."--from a reader.
"Unintentional Absurdism tag (@ Ptak Science Books blog) - "fox tossing; tuberculosis ward zeppelins; the centre of levity; street folk of the 16th century; cosmic panspermia; armoured semi-subterranean buildings (seemingly modeled after Tibet's Potala Palace); and various (extra-terrestrial, subterranean, nuke-proof domed, etc.) visions of NYC. Perfect for MF, EC, or gonzo D&D."--nice thorough look-see byVaults of Nago
Nice follow from Make Magazine and Gizmodo for the Sea of Planes post.
The blog has also been featured 15 times on Boing Boing and 8 times on Jezebel.
"From the wonderful Ptak Science books blog comes a recent, fascinating post about the centuries-old art and science of “Mole Mapping..." LinkerLand
Nice big review (mechanically translated from the Spanish) from Maria Castello:
"Some time ago I have the small and insignificant theory that the Internet is allowing for generations of varied and colorful cabinets of wonders, places where there is renewed passion for the curious, the odd, the only thing. I do not mean that the bug is unusual fascination with something new, just the opposite, but that means, by virtue of their comprehensiveness and immediacy, facilitated the movement and most importantly, has fostered the need for exchange."
"Well, without doubt, the blog of John Ptak is a place. Ptak Science Books, far from being a site devoted exclusively to scientific references or history of science, as one might assume by its title, would be rather a place for visual archeology. In all this archival underwriting year (there are, of course, very different ways to file) the game leaves us with the absurd bright categories such as "History of Blank, Empty and Missing Things, " "Things-out-of-Place Department", "Bad Ideas "," Strange Things in the Sky Department and many others, equally fascinating."