Web
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Senior Research Associate Astronomical Observatory
of Belgrade Volgina 7 11160 Belgrade-74 Serbia & Associate Professor University of Novi Sad Trg Dositeja Obradovića 4 21000 Novi Sad Serbia Phone: +381-11-3089079 E-mail: mcirkovic@aob.rs
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Serbian version coming soon!
Having some sort of web page since 1994 (long ago by
Internet standards), I’ve recently concluded that all complicated and fancy webpage stuff is truly
unnecessary and usually annoying. Therefore, I've decided to keep this page as
simple as possible. While I haven't yet reached the laudable simplicity of my
colleague, pen-friend, and an outstanding polymath Cosma Shalizi, that certainly
remains a goal worth striving for!
Professional
interests of mine:
Astrobiology and SETI studies
Evolution of galaxies and
baryonic dark matter
Philosophy of science,
especially philosophy of cosmology and quantum mechanics
Future studies, in particular
related to existential risks and transhumanism
History of physical sciences
Selected
recent publications (sometimes only penultimate drafts are
linked, the “official” versions could be accessed e.g., via KoBSON, one of the best
things which happened in local science in decades!):
NEW! Two books of mine have
appeared in recent months, notably 
(
(
NEW! Against the Empire. An essay
considering a possible evolutionary pathways of advances
extraterrestrial/future human civilizations. Journal of
the British Interplanetary Society, vol. 61, in press (2008).
NEW! On the Timescale Forcing in
Astrobiology. Branislav Vukotić
and Milan M. Ćirković (2007): Serbian
Astronomical Journal, vol. 175,
pp. 45-50.
Evolutionary Catastrophes
and the Goldilocks Problem. International Journal of Astrobiology, vol. 6, pp. 325-329 (2007).
Too Early? On the Apparent Conflict of Astrobiology and
Cosmology.
Biology and Philosophy, vol. 21, pp. 369-379 (2006).
Physics
vs. Semantics: A Puzzling Case of a Missing Quantum Theory. Foundations of Physics, vol. 35, pp. 817-838 (2005).
Adaptationism Fails to Resolve Fermi’s Paradox. Serbian Astronomical Journal (peruse HERE!),
vol. 170, pp. 89-100 (2005) – with
Ivana Dragićević and Tanja Berić-Bjedov.
“Permanence” – An Adaptationist Solution to
Fermi’s Paradox? Journal of the
British Interplanetary Society, vol. 58,
pp. 62-70 (2005) – recently
featured in New York Review of Science Fiction, vol. 17, issue 202, pp. 1-6!
On the
Temporal Aspect of the Drake Equation and SETI. Astrobiology, vol. 4, pp. 225-231 (2004).
Agencies,
Capacities, and Anthropic Self-Selection. Philosophical Writings, vol. 27
(Autumn 2004), pp. 43-62 (2004).
The Anthropic Principle and the Duration of the
Cosmological Past. Astronomical and
Astrophysical Transactions, vol. 23, pp. 567-597
(2004).
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Resource Letter PEs-1: Physical eschatology.
(2003): American Journal of Physics,
vol. 71, pp. 122-133 (2003).
Complete
(and likely out-of-date!) CV with all publications is available here
in .pdf format (345 Kb).
Current
activities:
Currently preparing an
academic book for Oxford University Press on “Global Catastrophic Risks” with Prof. Nick Bostrom as co-editor. To be published (hopefully!) by June 2008.
With Robert J. Bradbury, I am working
on “migration hypothesis” a particular solution to Fermi’s paradox, attempting
to join postbiological digital perspective to the current SETI studies. The
latest version of the preprint can be read here. All
comments are welcome!
In
collaboration with Prof. Ivana Dragićević, I’m working on a critical study of the so-called Carter's anthropic argument
in astrobiology.
In collaboration with Ivana
Damjanov, a grad student, I’m studying future star formation history of spiral disks,
notably the duration of the era of conventional star formation (stelliferous
era).
Some educational material
related to the mini-course I teach on issues in philosophy of science can be
found here (in
Serbian).
With Drs. Zorica
Cvetković and Zoran Knežević, I am preparing the Proceedings of the
XIV National Conference of Astronomers of Serbia and Montenegro.
Bureaucracy:
I am PI of the project #146012
“Gaseous and Stellar Components of Galaxies: Interaction and Evolution” financed by the Ministry of Science of the Republic of Serbia in the 2006-2010 period, with 9 co-investigators...
UPDATE: I have happily resigned as PI in favor of my great friend and
collaborator, Dr. Srdjan Samurović,
which will give me much more time to devote to research and other fun and
games!
...and member of more
professional organizations and societies than I really wish (or need!), so I
won't list them here.
Most
frequently used Web resources:
Philosophy of
science preprints
KoBSON
- Konzorcijum biblioteka Srbije za objedinjenu nabavku (subsuming various
individual services, like SCOPUS, JSTOR, etc.)
Lighter
stuff:
B92 - Internet, Radio
i TV stanica
More links on the dedicated page!
- friends and other interesting people
- useful links and resources
“The supreme
accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.”
Arnold
J. Toynbee (1889–1975), British historian and philosopher
E-mail me all comments and
suggestions!
Last
updated: 23. III 2010.