Upon learning about the work of Jeffrey C. Lagarias

TO: Jeffrey C. Lagarias, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
FM: Bruce E. Camber
RE: Your 2015 award, the 2015 AMS Levi L. Conant Prize, your homepage(s) including your arXiv articles, Google Scholar, Wikipedia, YouTube and your Packing Space with Regular Tetrahedra, J. Lagarias, University of Michigan and your Clay Fellow Senior Talk – “Packing Space with Regular Tetrahedra.”

This page: https://81018.com/2020/03/28/lagarias/ Pages within this website: https://81018.com/too-simple/ Lagarias and Zong (June 2016) Aristotle, Newton, Hawking

Fifth email (most recent): 7 September 2024

Dear Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Lagarias:

This is my fifth note to you; and as usual, I’ve got all of them posted on our page about your work: https://81018.com/2020/03/28/lagarias/

I understand that you and Prof. Zong are first and foremost mathematicians and not physicists. You are not going to speculate about physics, especially on contentious issues. Yet, I wonder if you might comment mathematically on this statement: “The first observation is that on a fundamental level space-time can be perfectly filled (with two tetrahedrons and one octahedron). The second observation is that again on a most fundamental level, there is a geometry of imperfection (gap geometries).”

Also, I have begun a late study of number theory and as you might suspect, I come at it from my unique perspective. First, there is the answer to the question about the first numbers and equations: https://81018.com/identity/ — which has all the newbie problems that newbies have. Then, there was this page a few months earlier: https://81018.com/numbers-numbers-numbers/

Perhaps I am too far gone off into my own la-la reality and I am too old to learn fundamentals and unlearn supposed fundamentals from self-studies. Any comments would be appreciated.

Sincerely,

Bruce

Fourth email: 18 April 2024

Dear Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Lagarias:

Your earlier work with Chuanming Zong is again spotlighted on our current homepage: https://81018.com/study/ I thought you might appreciate knowing about it.

Warmly,

Bruce

Third email: Tuesday, 26 May 2020

Dear Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Lagarias:

I continue to make references to your work. Most recently here:
An 1800+ year old mistake started with Aristotle
Aristotle failed to see the gap
Aristotle did not grasp the essence of tiling and tessellating

And, because I have made so many references, I have started pages for you and Prof. Dr. Chuanming Zong. Your page is here: https://81018.com/2020/03/28/lagarias/ Of course, if you would like anything changed, deleted, or added, I will be glad to accommodate. Thank you.

Most sincerely,

Bruce

Second email: 27 March 2020

Dear Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Lagarias:

I thank you again and again for your scholarly work. I endorse your work! Yet, given our work is so idiosyncratic, you probably would prefer that I didn’t.

Notwithstanding, I am glad for Mysteries in Packing Regular Tetrahedra (PDF).” Just about every day, I wonder what 1800 years of being wrong did to our scholarship.

Best wishes,

Bruce

The two references below are here: http://81018.com/uni-verse/#10f

81018.com/uni-verse/#10f (opens in a new tab)

10 Geometric gap: 0.12838822+ radians and 7.35610317245345+° degrees. Even today, March 2020, this gap is little studied and less known. Our first encounter with it was in 2016 upon writing the article, “Which numbers are the most important and why?”  At that time, it seemed like Chrysler Corporation had branded that geometry as the pentastar. And though it is a five-tetrahedral representation, they never looked uniquely at the gap of  7.35610317245345+° also defined by  0.12838822+ radians. Two chemists (Frank & Kasper) came closest to opening the discussion in the 1950s. Two academics (Lagarias and Zong) did a preliminary analysis that was a tremendous help; the relation of this gap to the deeper geometries of life remains as a challenge. Our modest start is here:  https://81018.com/number/#Pentastar

11Aristotle’s failure is our failure. Perhaps the gravity and nature of this error is only now beginning to be understood. We all make mistakes. When we are challenged, we defend our concepts as best we can, and then adapt. We change or our associates change.

Some people become larger than life within their own time. Three examples are Aristotle, Newton and Hawking. All three were wrong about one key impression about the nature of  life, yet their egos and their position and their person were so illuminated, it became increasingly difficult to challenge their assumptions.

Aristotle’s geometric gap, Newton’s absolute space and time, and Hawking’s infinitely hot big bang have each mislead scholarship and we all lost the scent and direction of the chase with its potentials for discovery and creativity. Throughout our ever-so youthful human history, such people can readily continue to mislead us. We have to be vigilant to review and re-review all the concepts we hold dear and begin to adjust them appropriately.

First email: Saturday, 31 August 2013 at 8:19:21 PM

Jeffrey C. Lagarias, Professor of Mathematics, University
Chuanming Zong, Professor of Mathematics, Peking University

Just a terrific job.  A wonderful read.
Thank you.

Coming up on two years now, we still do not know what to do with a simple
little construct: https://81018.com/planck-length-time/ I have a hunch that that object made of five tetrahedrons plays a key role.

Your work gives me a wider and deeper perspective.

Thanks.

Warmly,

Bruce
*************
Bruce E. Camber

PS. Long ago I studied with David Bohm, Phil Morrison, and so many others like them, but to make a living, I became a television producer!  We had the longest-running television series on PBS stations in the USA and the Voice of America around the world about best business practices.   https://smallbusinessschool.com

Here are some key points within my current thinking:

1. The universe is mathematically very small. Using base-2 exponential notation from the Planck Length to the Observable Universe, there are somewhere over 202.34 notations, steps or doublings. NASA’s Joe Kolecki helped us with the first calculation and JP Luminet (Paris Observatory) with the second. Our work began in our high school geometry classes when we started with a tetrahedron and divided the edges by 2 finding the octahedron in the middle and four tetrahedrons in each corner.  Then dividing the octahedron we found the eight tetrahedron in each face and the six octahedron in each corner.  We kept going inside until we found the Planck Length. We then multiplied by 2 out to the Observable Universe.  Then it was easy to standardize the measurements by just multiplying the Planck Length by 2. In somewhere around 202 notations we go from the smallest to the largest possible measurements of a length.

2. The very small scale universe is an amazingly complex place. Assuming the Planck Length is a singularity of one vertex, we also noted the expansion of vertices.  By the 60th notation, of course, there are over a quintillion vertices and at 61st notation well over 3 quintillion more vertices.  Yet, it must start most simply and here we believe the work within cellular automaton and the principles of computational equivalence could have a great impact. The mathematics of the most simple is being done. We also believe A.N. Whitehead’s point-free geometries should have applicability.

3. This little universe is readily tiled by the simplest structures. The universe can be simply and readily tiled with the four hexagonal plates within the octahedron and by the tetrahedral-octahedral-tetrahedral chains.

4. And, the universe is delightfully imperfect. In 1959, Frank/Kaspers discerned the 7.38 degree gap with a simple construction of five tetrahedrons (seven vertices) looking a lot like the Chrysler logo. We have several icosahedron models with its 20 tetrahedrons (we call it squishy geometry).  We also call it quantum geometry (in our high school). Perhaps here is the opening to randomness.

5. The Planck Length as the next big thing. Within computational automata we might just find the early rules that generate the infrastructures for things. The fermion and proton do not show up until the 66th notation or doubling.

I could go on, but let’s see if these statements are interesting to you in any sense of the word.  -BEC


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