TO: Jeremy Nicholas Butterfield, Affiliate of Centre for Quantum Information and Foundations (DAMTP), University of Cambridge, Trinity College, England UK
FM: Bruce E. Camber
RE: Your work within arXiv especially On Dualities and Equivalences (2018); On Time in Quantum Physics (2014); Reduction, Emergence and Renormalization (2014); Our Mathematical Universe? (2014); your homepage(s): Natural Environment Research Council, PhilPeople, ResearchGate; your other publications; Talks at University of Cambridge; Wikipedia; and YouTube: What Exists? (2017), Observations (2017), Contextuality (2017)
This page: https://81018.com/2019/02/17/butterfield/
FQXi member: http://81018.com/fqxi/#Butterfield
Almost there: https://81018.com/almost/#Butterfield
Most recent email: Monday, December 13, 2021, 10:38 PM
Dear Prof. Dr. Jeremy Nicholas (Nick) Butterfield:
On my bookshelves and sometimes on my desk since 1973, I have had Herbert Butterfield’s The Origins of Modern Science. It’s been in and out of dozens upon dozens of boxes for the many, many moves. He has become like kinfolk. Then I began to wonder, “Is he Nick’s actual kinfolk?” …uncle, grandfather, father? I wonder, is he?
I continue working that base-2 model from the Planck units. My latest iteration is here: https://81018.com/almost If you might comment, I would be eternally grateful. Thank you.
Most sincerely,
Second email: Wed, Jul 31, 2019, 10:18 AM
Primary reference: http://www.qi.damtp.cam.ac.uk/node/1
Dear Prof. Dr. Jeremy Nicholas Butterfield:
Such scholarship. Thank you for all your very substantial work. As for me, I am barely swimming and often drowning in information overload.
In 2011, with about 90 high school geometry students, we engaged the Planck scale primarily by unwittingly mapping the universe, simulating base-2 (versus Boeke’s base-10) by going inside the tetrahedron by dividing its edges by 2, connecting those new vertices until in 45 steps we were at about the measurements of
lengths within particle physics. In another 67 steps we were looking up at Planck’s scale, a wall if you will. Then we multiplied by 2 until we were out to the approximate age of the universe. We had a total of just 202 notations. References: https://81018.com/home/ and https://81018.com/2012/06/14/kolecki/
Not being the brightest lightbulbs to illuminate the spheres, in 2014, we finally added Planck Time and in 2016 added the other two base units:
Reference: https://81018.com/chart/
Before I make more of a fool of myself than I already have, would you take a look at this page — https://81018.com/transformation/ – which is slated to become the homepage tomorrow.
Might you give me quick advice? Too idiosyncratic for words? Just silliness? I thank you.
Most sincerely,
-Bruce
First email: Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 9:30 AM
Primary reference: http://www.qi.damtp.cam.ac.uk/node/19
Dear Prof. Dr. Jeremy Butterfield,
My Google Scholar alerts for new citations about George Ellis includes two references (ArXiv and the PhilSci PDF) to your review of Sabine Hossenfelder’s Lost in Math.
There are in fact a lot of bad ideas. There is a dearth of simple ideas that postulate very simple foundations. In 2011 a geometry class in New Orleans (USA) we went inside the tetrahedron and the octahedrons within it by dividing the edges by two and connecting those new vertices. A simple Zeno-like exercise, we also were learning a little about base-2 and then the Planck base units of time, length, mass and charge. It was
surprising to go just 45 steps to the particle physics domain and 67 more steps into Planck’s scale. When we multiplied by 2, we were out to the size and age of the universe in just another 90 steps. 202 to encapsulate the universe.
But, so what? Is it just a bunch of numbers? We looked around for a bit and discovered only Kees Boeke’s base-10. At least some other high school people had ventured out of the textbook!
The first 64-to-67 notations puzzled us. Well before any possibility of any measurement by instrumentation, it caused us to look more closely at what it was defining. The first second comes out between notation 143 and 144. The first year at notation 169. The large scale universe comes out between 195 and 197. This chart was based on doublings, started at the Planck base units, and seems to demand that every type of doubling be investigated. We have gladly learned about bifurcation theory, cubic-close packing, and more.
We always seem to find our way back to DAMTP. But, you are at the most beautiful, legendary, Trinity College! It seems we’ve got to wrestle with Newton and Hawking much more than we had ever anticipated. Oh, that question about renormalization and infinity is ever so present!
What do you make of our simple approach? …simpletons?
We really would appreciate some hard-hitting logic to smack us back into reality!
Can I politely yell out, “Help! We’re drowning in details!” Thanks.
Warmly,
-Bruce