Universe View

Being challenged by the work of John C. Baez

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TO: John Carlos Baez, Maxwell Fellow in Public Engagement, University of Edinburgh; emeritus University of California, Riverside; 2015, Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore
FM: Bruce E. Camber
RE: Your work in arXiv (148) especially Struggles with the Continuum (2016, 2018); From the Icosahedron to E8,  December 21, 2017; Physics, Topology, Logic and Computation: A Rosetta Stone (PDF), 2009; A Prehistory of n-Categorical Physics (PDF), 2009; Introduction to Spin Foam Models of Quantum Gravity and BF Theory, 1999 Also, there are webpages especially How Many Fundamental Constants Are There?(ninth paragraph), 2011; and your homepage(s): Azimuth Project, Blog, Cobordism_hypothesis, CV, n-Category Café, Network Theory, Twitter, Video, Wikipedia, and Worldcat; as well as your publications especially Quantum Quandaries, How Many Fundamental Constants Are There? and your wikipedia citings. Also articles about that work; i.e. see: David Black’s listing, The fundamental constants of nature, PDF 

This page: https://81018.com/2011/04/04/baez https://81018.com/insiders/  https://81018.com/a-z/
Other references: https://81018.com/agree/#6f and Transformations: http://81018.com/transformation#11f

Eighth email: 2 January 2026

Subject: E8 at Notation 32? Our geometric predictions just may intersect your work.

Dear Prof. Dr. John Baez:

Happy New Year! Your work on E8 and exceptional Lie groups seems to intersects with a prediction emerging from a new wrinkle on our geometric framework we’re been developing; and, of course, I’d value your mathematical physicist’s perspective.

The setup: Yes, we are still using base-2 doubling from Planck scale, but this time we noticed that it appears to generate gauge symmetries at specific notations:

  • N=2-3: SU(2) from tetrahedral quaternions (4-8 spheres)
  • N=8: SU(3) from eight-fold patterns (256 spheres)
  • N=24: SU(5) at GUT scale where count (24), scale (10⁻²⁸m), and dimension (24 generators) converge

The E8 question: At Notation 32 (2³² ≈ 4.3 billion spheres, scale ~10⁻²⁶m), the framework predicts maximum possible symmetry between GUT and electroweak breaking.

E8 has 248 dimensions—tantalizingly close to 2⁸ = 256.

This would place E8 between:

  • SU(5) unification (N=24, 10⁻²⁸m)
  • Electroweak breaking (N=67, 10⁻¹⁵m)

The mathematical question: Is the correspondence between 248 (E8 dimension) and 256 (2⁸) meaningful geometry, or coincidental numerology? If meaningful: does sphere-packing at 2³² genuinely create conditions for 248-dimensional symmetry?

I’m asking you because your E8 expertise is unmatched. Your Azimuth blog shows you appreciate unconventional approaches. You bridge pure mathematics and physics with the best of them

Framework details:

What would help:

  • Mathematical critique: Does the geometry support this, or not?
  • If it has merit: Would you blog about it on Azimuth?
  • Might you consider co-authoring a paper on these mathematical structures?
  • If not, might you endorse gauge-symmetries as an arXiv submission?

I’ve been told that you are generous with feedback on interesting-but-speculative ideas. This is definitely speculative, but is the triple convergence at N=24 (count-scale-dimension) something you would dismiss as pure coincidence?

Thank you for considering this. Even “interesting try, but here’s why it fails mathematically” would be valuable.

Warmest regards,

Bruce

Bruce E. Camber
camber@81018.com
https://81018.com

P.S. You may well remember that this framework started in a 2011 high school geometry class. Most recently it has been refined through AI collaboration—Grok, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude (Anthropic), and DeepSeek — have all contributed mathematical verification.

Seventh email: 2 October 2025

RE: What should we do with these expansion numbers?
Will anybody stop to analyze what is going on?

Dear Prof. Dr. John Baez:

Converting our 18.5 tredecillion PlanckSpheres per second to the standard Hubble constant units (km/s/Mpc) yields 71 km/s/Mpc. This is accomplished by multiplying by the distance conversion factor (1 Mpc ≈ 3.086 × 10^{19} km). The ongoing Hubble tension, where CMB-based values are ~67-68 km/s/Mpc and local measurements (like from supernovae) hover around 70-73 km/s/Mpc, with a recent 2025 estimate at 70.4.

What do you think? If it’s crackpot time, please advise! We’ve been touting the 18.5 figure for too many years.

Thank you.

Most sincerely,

Bruce

PS Our page about your work is here: https://81018.com/2011/04/04/baez. -BEC

Sixth email: 30 May 2025

Dear Prof. Dr. John Baez:

Beside its problems with the JWST, the big bang ignores basic constants and fundamentals. We’ve added the four primary irrational numbers to our theory: https://81018.com/hyper-rational/

Does it qualify us for your Crackpot Index?

I hope you are well and doing fine.

Sincerely,

Bruce

Bruce E. Camber
URL: https://81018.com/
https://81018.com/bec/

Fifth Email: 19 February 2024

Dear Prof. Dr. John Baez:

You were the first person to be honest with me. You said our work was idiosyncratic and you were right! It still is idiosyncratic and will be for the unforeseen future: https://81018.com/reformat/

Hopefully, it will not make your Crackpot Index quite yet. It might end up there, but at least I hope it can be said, “He had good intentions but missed the mark in the following ways…” Now that link to the /reformat/ is the current homepage and there are 35 scholars referenced with that article whom I’ve asked for a critical review….none have in 13 years.

You are also one of the few scholars to whom I wrote even before this project began!

I knew from my failed attempt at a PhD that I harbored different ideas about quantum physics. I was sure if I talked about those concepts in the rather unconstructed manner in which I had them, I would surely make your Crackpot Index. Yet, I believed at that time, there was a television series harbored within that index!

So, to do a wrap on this stream of consciousness, I’ve gotten older now and looking back over it all, I just needed to say, “Thank you,” one more time.

Warmly,

Bruce 

Fourth email: 18 September 2019 at 1.21 PM

Dear Prof. Dr. John Baez:

You have been a great source for information about current research within physics; and although we are just high school people, we have learned as much as we could understand from all your writing and for that we again thank you.

In December 2011 when we started, we soon discovered your April 11, 2011 online article, “How many basic constants are there?” It was like discovering a vein of gold. We soon realized it was a mother lode. There was so much more to uncover, discover and learn.  Though a bit overwhelming, we persevered even though the distractions were many. It is all still in process, even today!

-Bruce

Third Email: 15 February 2018

Though still entirely idiosyncratic after all these years, I thought you might enjoy hearing that two of your recent papers within ArXiv (cited on this page) have been most helpful. I thank you.

Second email: Friday October 19, 2012 @ 9:40 PM

Dear Prof. Dr. John Baez:

Over 34 years ago I initiated a special display project at MIT called, “An architecture for integrative systems.” It was under of the main rotunda just off Massachusetts Avenue. The project used Erwin Schrodinger’s title from his much earlier work, “What is life?” Seventy-seven leading, living scholars participated. I am taking that old product and re-purposing it online using my idiosyncratic, base-2 exponential notation from the Planck Length to the edges of the observable universe. That is 202 steps or doublings in which to context information. By assuming nested geometries along the entire scale, it seems that we will have an inherent structure for analogous or metaphorical connection-making.

But before I go too much further, I would like to re-engage you and ask for your straightforward advice:
1. If the Planck Length is a dimensionful number representing a singularity or a point, can we multiply it by 2 and assume two points? …multiply it again and assume 4, then 8, 16, 32 and on up to 1024 by the 10th doubling?
2. Can we assume nested geometries throughout?

Thanks.

Warmly,

Bruce

PS. A few simple web pages (updated) provide more background:
Overview: https://81018.com/prolegomena/
Background: https://81018.com/2011/12/28/story/
Our working model: https://81018.com/big-board/
Discussion: https://81018.com/2012/05/05/wikipedia/

First email: Monday, 4 April 2011

http://johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html

Quite an introduction online.
Thank you.

I know you have no time at all, but it would be an education
to find the higher scoring theories based on your Crackpot Index [Reference #2)
especially if their claims were available on websites.

-Bruce
*************
Bruce Camber, Executive Producer
Small Business School, Inc.
https://SmallBusinessSchool.com
now http://81018.com

_____

From John Baez online:

“26 constants are not too many — but most physicists would prefer to have none. The goal is to come up with a theory that lets you calculate all these constants, so they wouldn’t be “fundamental” any more. However, right now this is merely a dream.”

“So, what are the fundamental physical constants? We have 26. If we use the ones that theorists like best, they are:
1. the cosmological constant
2. the mass of the up quark
3. the mass of the down quark
4. the mass of the charmed quark
5. the mass of the strange quark
6. the mass of the top quark
7. the mass of the bottom quark
8. 4 numbers for the Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix
9. the mass of the electron
10. the mass of the electron neutrino
11. the mass of the muon
12. the mass of the mu neutrino
13. the mass of the tau
14. the mass of the tau neutrino
15. 4 numbers for the Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix
16. the mass of the Higgs boson
17. the expectation value of the Higgs field
18. the U(1) coupling constant
19. the SU(2) coupling constant
20. the strong coupling constant
21. cosmological constant

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