TO: Abhay Ashtekar, Institute for Gravitational Physics and Geometry, Physics Department, Penn State, University Park, PA 16802, U.S.A
FM: Bruce E. Camber
RE: These articles stopped me, particularly Space and Time: From Antiquity to Einstein and Beyond (PDF), then your arXiv articles, especially Asymptotics with a positive cosmological constant, then your CV and your other publications, including your homepage(s) and even your Wikipedia entry. And, Youtube, especially Even a tiny positive cosmological constant casts a long shadow (2016) was helpful.
This page: https://81018.com/ashtekar/ Also: In Search Of Deeply-Informed Analyses
Sixth email: 11 March 2024
Dear Prof. Dr. Abhay Ashtekar,
You are a couple of years younger than me. I studied under Abner Shimony, rubbed shoulders with John Stachel, been to CERN to visit with Bell under the auspices Viki Weisskopf and Lew Kowarski and so on (i.e. with J.P. Vigier and Olivier Costa de Beauregard for special studies in the Spring of 1980, working with each about an hour per week, at the Institut Henri Poincaré).
We talked about symmetry; from where does it come? We talked about continuity and Fourier’s Transform and harmony; from where do they come? Certainly pi (π) is involved, but who writes about it?
In the face of the results of Efstathiou and others call for a smooth start and the JWST’s galaxies within 300 million years, academia still touts the big bang as fact — “The big bang and the Schwarzschild singularities are space-like” (Space-like Singularities of General Relativity, 2022) — something has to give.
Would you agree?
My last email was on 3 July 2023. I am now updating my “Ashtekar page” and catching up on your many ArXiv entries. If you had an extra moment, I would be grateful to have you comment on this page where I cite you and Carlo Rovelli here : https://81018.com/reformat/#LQG
Thank you very much.
Warmly,
Bruce
Fifth email: July 3, 2023 at 11:18 AM
RE: Happy 4th of July https://81018.com/penultimate-revolution
Dear Prof. Dr. Abhay Ashtekar,
You’ll need the following to light the fuse of your LQG revolution:
1. The first 64 notations out of the 202 base-2 notations that encapsulate the universe. You’re defining them, now.
2. The perfections of the first sphere and subsequent infinitesimal spheres filling the universe at a rate defined by Planck Time.
3. A diminution of quantum physics to simple geometries: https://81018.com/geometries/
Please excuse my awkward presumptuousness.
Best wishes,
Bruce
PS. My correspondence and summary of your work: https://81018.com/ashtekar/
Fourth email: 23 May 2023
Dear Prof. Dr. Abhay Ashtekar,
If all time is now, would it be fair to say that we experience all 26 faces of time which includes all time since PlanckTime? Would it be fair to say that PlanckTime represents the first unit of time?
What might that first unit of time look like?
With the help of now-deceased Phil Davis of Brown and NIST, we’ve postulated an infinitesimal sphere, a little like Lemaître’s primeval atom. Atoms carry too much historic baggage so we opted for the sphere. Even though it has a bigger history, it’s more mysterious and open-ended. I believe there are ways that LQG (and all the others not on the grid) can be integrated, especially within the first 50 or so notations of the 202 base-2 notations from Planck Time to the Now. Of the many substantial hurdles, one is reducing quantum fluctuations to geometries, particularly the geometries of the gaps. Another is to allow spherical geometries to define a finite-infinite relation whereby continuity, symmetry, and harmony define the earliest universe. The initial few seconds is enough, then it can be pulled back inside the rontosecond and quectosecond.
We’ve begun to think about the look and feel of a chart of the faces of time:
https://81018.com/the-firsts/#Table
Thank you.
Most sincerely,
Bruce
PS. I’ll insert that chart below so you can take an initial look at its layout:
Second email: 25 November 2020
Ivan Agullo, Louisiana State University
Abhay Ashtekar, Pennsylvania State University
William Nelson, Pennsylvania State University
Dear Profs. Drs. Ivan Agullo, Abhay Ashtekar, and William Nelson:
I was looking at an article from 2012 by Stephen Battersby in the New Scientist where he says, “Now Abhay Ashtekar, Ivan Agullo and William Nelson of Penn State University in University Park have used loop quantum gravity to examine what structures would emerge as the universe bounced into being.”
I have that article opened from within ArXiv.
Our work began down river from LSU in River Ridge, just south of the NOLA airport and north of the quarter, in a high school geometry class where we were walking deeper and deeper inside the tetrahedral-octahedral couplet. When we bumped into the Planck Wall, we turned around and quite intentionally applied base-2 using the Planck’s length to come out 112 steps back into the classroom and then to go the next 90 steps to the edge of the universe, the current expansion, and this very day and time.
We thought it was entirely cool.
Then I started looking at it. Of course, Kees Boeke did his base-10 and IMAX did a heck of a promotion of it. It took a couple of years to believe folks who told us, “This is the first time that a base-2 chart has been done.” The chart gives us 64 notations prior to the CERN-scale. The 25th notation brings us out to 1.8090539×10-36 seconds. The first second is just with Notation-144, the first light year is within Notation-169, the first million years is within Notation-189 and the first billion years is within Notation-199.
If we start cold like Lemaître did in 1927, the first manifestation is possibly a primordial sphere. The stacking of spheres opens cubic-close packing of equal spheres as early as Notation-2. That possibly opens the dynamics within Fourier Transform; and rather quickly, the rest is history.
All the numbers for big bang dynamics are quickly picked up and encapsulated.
That’s all well-and-good, but we are nobody from nowhere special. We have deep holes in our knowledge and understanding and we need help either to plot a path forward or to shut this thing down.
I would be deeply grateful for any help you can give us! Thank you.
Warmly,
Bruce
First email: 17 April 2019
Dear Prof. Dr. Abhay Ashtekar:
Apparently we took a road less traveled and fell into Alice’s rabbit hole.
Can we double the Planck base units? Frank Wilczek said, “Yes.” But, is it meaningful? We applied base-2 from Planck’s units and in 67 steps we were up into the CERN scale. In 112 steps we were at the size of our original tetrahedron (and octahedron within it). In 143 steps we’re just over one second. Go to Notation-169 for one light year, Notation-179 for 1000 years, Notation-189 for a million years, and Notation-199 for a billion years. In 202 steps we were out to the approximate age and size of the universe. Our chart: https://81018.com/chart/
It’s a sweet map of the universe, a little like Boeke’s base-10, but more granular and by definition it goes from the Planck base-units to the current time and the current expansion of the universe. But, is it meaningful? We’ve looked at many doubling functions and believe it should be or else logic is failing us somewhere.
Might you help advise? Is this a fantasy? If so, is there a way back to reality? Thank you very much.
Most sincerely,
Bruce