TO: Gerardus ‘t Hooft, Institute for Theoretical Physics & EMMEΦ, Centre for Extreme Matter and Emergent Phenomena, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
FM: Bruce E. Camber
RE: Our review of your articles, especially ArXiv: An unorthodox view on quantum mechanics (PDF), 2021; Ontology in quantum mechanics, 2021; and Free Will in the Theory of Everything, 2017; How quantization of gravity leads to a discrete space-time, IOP Publishing, Emergent Quantum Mechanics 2015, doi:10.1088/1742-6596/701/1/012014; your books, especially Time in Powers of Ten: Natural Phenomena and Their Timescales, https://doi.org/10.1142/8786, May 2014; and In Search of the Ultimate Building Blocks, Cambridge UP, 1996; and your homepage(s): CV, Nobel Prize (1999), and recent articles by Scientific American, Quantum Mechanics Is Nonsense (2025); even your Wikipedia and YouTube: Lemaitre Workshop, May 9-12, Vatican Observatory (INAF and INFN) (2017)… all very valuable.
Pages with ‘t Hooft: https://81018.com/campaign2/ and https://81018.com/paradigm-shift/
Seventh email: 18 April 2025
Dear Prof. Dr. Gerard ‘t Hooft:
Congratulations (yet so sorry to add to the flood of email you are receiving) is due for your Scientific American article, “Quantum Mechanics Is Nonsense” (April 2025).
It certainly has sparked some discussion! About the same time I had submitted a 1000-word article to SCIAM for my Qualitative Expansion Model (QEM) [https://81018.com/sciam-2025/]. QEM shares your deterministic vision, starting with Planck-scale spheres that stack into a geometric lattice, scaling via base-2 notations. Like your cellular automaton, it avoids quantum randomness, with π ensuring continuity and symmetry. Could QEM’s sphere-based lattice align with your ideas for a classical foundation of physics?
If you have a moment, I’d greatly value your perspective.
Warm regards,
Bruce
Sixth email: 24 March 2025
Dear Prof. Dr. Gerardus ‘t Hooft:
Is it true that no one has discerned a relation between the four primary irrational numbers?
Could this be a pathway?
https://81018.com/incommensurable/
https://81018.com/big-ideas/
https://81018.com/irrationals/
Thank you.
Warmly,
Bruce
PS. You may have been unorthodox on occasion. I have been entirely idiosyncratic. But maybe, just maybe, not for too much longer. -BEC
Fifth email: 11 September 2024
Dear Prof. Dr. Gerardus ‘t Hooft:
Before the world falls further into chaos, let’s try a few new starting points. Perhaps those just below are too idiosyncratic for you. Links go to the post. I am still working on it. Thanks.
Warmly,
Bruce
My page about your work: https://81018.com/2018/02/08/hooft/
Key Reference Page: https://81018.com/correct/
Paradigm shifts are stifled because key assumptions haven’t been reviewed:
1. Pi (π). Are the never-ending units of pi either infinite, finite, or both?
2. The facets of pi (π): Are continuity-symmetry-harmony finite or infinite or both?
3. Kurt Gödel & David Hilbert: Is the infinite ubiquitously within the finite?
4. Aristotle’s Gap and gap geometries. What is the basic role of geometry?
5. The universe as a mathematical entity. Are natural units the start of the universe?
6. The universe. Do 202 base-2 notations encapsulate the universe?
7. Time. If the notations are all active now, what is time?
8. Spheres. Do infinitesimal spheres populate the universe?
Fourth email: 8 February 2024
Dear Prof. Dr. Gerardus ‘t Hooft:
I thought you might enjoy seeing this take on the current state of the big bang theory: https://81018.com/bbc/ (Later version: https://81018.com/reformat/)
Shortly after you and Stefan Vandoren came out with your “times-ten” book, we were working on our understanding of base-2.
Time in Powers of Ten: Natural Phenomena and Their Timescales (2014) was most helpful. We began thinking about causal efficacies with geometries, spheres, close-cubic packing, Planck’s natural units… we were on overload so it all took inordinate amounts of time.
Obviously, we are still at it but seem to get more-and-more out of step with current thinking. Might you have some guiding wisdom for us?
Thank you.
Warmly,
Bruce
Third email: 1 October 2022 at 11:59 PM
Dear Prof. Dr. Gerardus ‘t Hooft:
Most paradoxes are a red flag for incompleteness. Obfuscation is not uncommon. And, I suspect that we will not find anything among all Einstein’s writings about the Theory of Relativity that will satisfy you or me with an insight about how “space-time itself does expand faster than the speed of light” and “how it is possible that there may be galaxies that are almost 100 billion light years apart.” Of course, both of the quotes are from the Forward of Time in Powers of Ten, page xiv, second paragraph.
So, what is already known that might accommodate such conclusions? Before inventing the new, might we consider Planck’s 1899 calculation of natural units? George Stoney made similar calculations in 1874 (published in 1881). The density of those natural units are on the order of a neutron star. Quick calculations using base-2 place the first minute within Notation-143, the first year within Notation-169, and today within Notation 202. It’s a natural inflation that absorbs the big bang without extralogic and new theories. It opens new possibilities for Langlands, strings, and SUSY, to name just a few.
We have the makings for a Wheeler-like simple beginning (see quote under image). Thank you.
Warm regards,
Bruce
PS. There is a geometry associated with the powers of 2. All notations are always building on each other. It’s a basic outline, but here our grasp of the very nature of time becomes penultimate. -BEC
Second email: 30 September 2022
RE: The Paradox described on page xiv in the Forward of Time in Powers of Ten
References: Time in Powers of Ten and your most recent ArXiv articles
Lemaitre Workshop May 9-12 at the Vatican Observatory, 2017
Dear Prof. Dr. Gerardus ‘t Hooft:
The words in your book’s Forward are: “…space-time itself does expand faster than the speed of light.” Does this paradox have a formal name? Have there been any peer-reviewed papers about it? Thank you.
Warm regards,
Bruce
Updated: 8 February 2018 First email: Sunday, June 16, 2013
References: How to become a GOOD theoretical physicist
One of your pages that the students enjoy: Tilings
Dear Prof. Dr. Gerardus ‘t Hooft:
Our geometry classes worked with clear, plastic tetrahedrons and octahedrons. We created the twenty-tetrahedral icosahedron, and the sixty-tetrahedral dodecahedron (Pentakis dodecahedron). We’ve built models and looked inside each (more pictures here). When asked if there were any questions, one of the students conjured up Zeno and sweetly asked, “How far within can we go?”
Using just the perfectly-fitting octahedron and tetrahedron, on paper we went inside each object about 112 times, dividing by 2 to discover that we were in the range of the Planck Length. We also discovered how each group of models was growing exponentially as we went further inside.
Next class we went the other way. We multiplied by 2 until we were in the range of the Observable Universe. There were just 90 steps. We thought it was very cool until we couldn’t find any references to it on the web. Of course, we found Kees Boeke’s work from the 1957. Back in days long gone by, occasionally I had dinners with Phyllis & Phil Morrison; they helped to popularize Boeke’s work with their classic coffee table book, The Powers of Ten.
Yet, now many of us are asking, “Where do the powers of 2 and base-2 exponential notation fit into the larger picture? Do we live in an exponential universe? Does Euler’s equation capture the universe as well?” We initially thought it was a very good STEM tool, but now we think it just might be more.
Six years later, we are still asking the experts, “What are we doing wrong?” Would you tell us? Thanks.
Warmly,
Bruce
PS. Since our first email (a first-draft of this email), we followed your work with Stefan Vandoren on Time in Powers of Ten: Natural Phenomena and Their Timescales and we have begun to engage your work within ArXiv. Long, long ago I studied the foundations of physics with Abner Shimony and Robert Cohen at BU (1973-1980), and then with David Bohm, Costa de Beauregard, and J. P. Vigier (1977 & 1980). But, I was idiosyncratic. Siding more with Leibniz than Newton, I began my graduate studies thinking that the essence of the infinite was continuity, symmetry and harmony, not absolute time. Though I enjoy Frank Wilczek’s work (2012 to now), I am even too idiosyncratic for him. Notwithstanding, if you’ll look at our current chart you will see that only two relatively brief epochs — the Grand Unification and Inflationary Epochs — are defined a little differently. –BEC
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