Upon following the work of Cumrun Vafa…

TO: Cumrun Vafa of the High Energy Theory Group – Center for the Fundamental Laws of Nature, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138
FM: Bruce E. Camber
RE: Your article, My dinner with Dr. Hawking, Harvard Gazette (2016), your many ArXiv: (275) especially Evidence for F-Theory (1996), The String Landscape and the Swampland, 2005, Dark Dimension Gravitons as Dark Matter, 2022, The Tale of Three Scales (PDF) (2024), and your books especially Puzzles to Unravel the Universe, 2020; and Breakthrough Prize 2017, as well as your many homepage(s) especially Harvard (CV-PDF), Publications, inSPIREHEP, X-tweet, Wikipedia, YouTube and especially Palestra Especial: On Mathematical Aspects of String Theory (2015) and your quote: “What is Planckscale physics? We have no idea.” TASI, 32:27 min., 2022 and Origins of the Universe (2022).

Within this website: Harvard, Strings, dark matter & dark energy, Breakthrough Prize #1 and #2, Superhot, Revolution, Facts & Guesses (summary), with Polchinski and Strominger, and this page, the URL: https://81018.com/vafa/ and Our Analysis.

Overview: July 2025

Introduction. Boston is my birth home. My grandparents lived for 25 years near the Harvard campus. I remember as a child, playing in the woods in the area of today’s William James Psychology Building across from their apartment. On the occasion of a note to Cumrun Vafa, I was returning to Boston for a family graduation and for a conference ODSC. I had made a little progress on the Qualitative Expansion Model (QEM) and had hoped to discuss that with him.

Dear Prof. Dr. Vafa Cumrun:

Our cosmological framework emphasizes symmetry and Planck-scale geometries.

I’ll be in Boston from May 8-15 for the ODSC conference, to visit with family, and to see if I can get some guidance. We are making some progress on that Qualitative Expansion  Model (QEM) and I would, of course, be honored to meet you to discuss its alignment with your work (symmetry in particle physics). I’ve incorporated a bit of a reference to Gerard ‘t Hooft’s focus on symmetry groups, and I believe QEM’s geometric gaps might resonate with your work. A most-recent, basic reference to that work is here: https://81018.com/qualitative-expansion/ (being worked on even today)

Might you have some availability for a brief meeting during my visit? I’d be glad to come back to Cambridge and Oxford Street. As a child, we used to play  in the Peabody Museum, glass flowers and all!

Warm regards,
Bruce

Seventh email: 15 March 2025

Dear Prof. Dr. Cumrun Vafa, 

Pi (π) gets some serious recognition and analysis. Phi (φ) get less. The square root of 2 (√2) gets engaged by a few specialists. And, Euler’s number (e) is understood by even fewer. The irrationals may well be incommensurable, but if taken together these four just might embody an intrinsic geometry, the four hexagonal plates of the octahedron. If they do, it all happens at the Planck scale. Speculative? Of course, but I think it worth some consideration. No experts have yet responded to me, so I turned to Grok: https://81018.com/irrationals/

To date, I have discussed it in these last four homepages:
• Pi Day 2025: https://81018.com/pi-day-2025/
• Today’s homepage: https://81018.com/incommensurable/
• Breakthrough: https://81018.com/breakthrough/ https://81018.com/breakthrough-indeed/

Your comments would be most welcomed. Thank you.

Most sincerely,

Bruce

PS. If you have any updates-changes-deletions within our page about your work, just say the word. That page is: https://81018.com/vafa/ An evolving page: https://81018.com/harvard/  -BEC

Sixth email: 29 October 2024

Reference: https://81018.com/vision/#Vafa

Dear Prof. Dr. Cumrun Vafa, 

I just love our scholars at Harvard, MIT, Oxford, and the IAS. You all provide a baseline for scholarship. If one of the scholars from one of these four institutions hasn’t said it, it is out of the mainstream, “Proceed with caution.”

We probably have been too cautious. A few of the scholars in these four groups have been addressing some of the same questions, yet I’ll admit that your statement about the Planck scale is a segue that opens the unanswered questions better than most: dark energy/matter, smoothness, no new particles, and galaxies forming too early. Our nascent model may address many of them.

Again, I thank you and your teams for all your work,

Warmly,

Bruce

Fifth email: 2 October 2024

Dear Prof Dr. Cumrun Vafa, 

Back on November 9, 2022, I sent my first uninvited email (below) about our naive venture into Planck-scale physics. While becoming familiar with your work, we had had an ever-so-slow (eleven years) learning curve related to the infinitesimal. As outrageous as it sounds, we’ve emerged with eight hypotheses about the start of the universe assuming the Planck scale physics is real.

All eight links will eventually be reworked within a separate page. The current links are to those pages when we first began to think that such a development was possible.

Poppycock? Silliness? Possible paradigm shift?

Thank you.

Most sincerely,
Bruce

Part II. Online form: I am not sure if my email actually gets through any screening you have; or if it is so naive, it does not warrant your reply… notwithstanding, the issues are too important to be left inside with the just our best scholars. Others may have naive insights.
https://81018.com/vafa/ is our working summary page about your work and it has copies of all the emails to you. You are cited within this homepage: https://81018.com/facts-guesses/ and when not on the homepage, you are often mentioned: https://81018.com/infinitesimals/#Vafa

Should I send any comments or questions to the contact for each of the latest articles: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.01405
https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.02705
https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.06704
https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.15414
usw
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Bruce

Fourth email: 26 February 2024

References: (1) https://81018.com/vafa/ and https://81018.com/vafa/#Recent
(2) https://81018.com/reformat/#Vafa
(3) https://81018.com/reformat/#Emails

RE: Questions regarding what might be called foundations for a paradigm shift

Dear Prof. Dr. Cumrun Vafa:

May we take as a given that the nature of pi (π) may be further defined at the Planck scale by assuming that the Planck base units (natural units) manifest as the first moment of space-time and do so as an infinitesimal sphere?

Isn’t that sphere scale-invariant and the most-simple, three-dimensional object?  As a sphere with the three most-basic qualities of pi, might continuity, symmetry and harmony also be manifest?

Given this infinitesimal sphere is defined by units of Planck Time, Planck Length, Planck Charge and Planck Mass, isn’t it possible to calculate a rate of expansion if take as a given that there is one infinitesimal sphere for each unit of Planck Time? Wouldn’t that calculate to be 18.5 tredecillion spheres per second?

This would be a rather simple start of the universe. 

With these relatively basic assumptions, the universe starts uniformly and smoothly and star formation is immediate. We address two key issues raised by the JWST, smoothness (like George Efstathiou who called for a new physics Beyond the Standard Model) and galaxies within 300 million years of the start. 

By this definition of pi (π) and the sphere, wouldn’t everything within spacetime be preconditioned by continuity, symmetry and harmony?  Of course, these spheres are many orders of magnitude smaller than the neutrino. Wouldn’t these infinitesimal spheres necessarily form a grid (sphere stacking and packing) that connects everything, everywhere, for all time?

It is a very different perception of the roles of pi (π) than is currently studied in schools today. There is more here: https://81018.com/reformat/

With a bit more work and editing, would you recommend that article to PRD?

Thank you.

Warm regards,

Bruce

Third email: 18 July 2023 Small edits: August 4, 2023

Dear Professor Dr. Cumrun Vafa:

I know your time is limited so I enclose the footnote from the title of our homepage today, and for the next week or more. The next homepage will focus on the concept of tabula rasa. Of course, these pages — https://81018.com/vafa/ and https://81018.com/facts-guesses — will be updated with any comments that you believe need updating. Thank you.

Most sincerely,

Bruce

The first footnote from the homepage titled, “…Planckscale physics? We have no idea.”
“We have no good description of Planck scale physics.” – Cumrun Vafa, Harvard*:

*Cumrun Vafa.  jk Vafa is one of the world’s preeminent scholars and most-cited physicists. In 2017 he won the ;Breakthrough Prize with Joe Polchinski and Andrew Strominger. Today, we are hoping to get some feedback from him. Our page about his work is: https://81018.com/vafa/ There are two videos where Cumrun Vafa talks about his approach to the Planck scale. It is an excellent introduction to first principles and the questions, “What comes first? Why?” There are natural biases for-and-against certain conceptual frameworks. These build up over a lifetime of study. Also, for centuries now, scholars have been working to limit the influence of infinity such that the studies of infinity have also become limited such that the qualities of infinity that could inform our understanding of the finite get limited, too.

This discussion is so important, it will first become part of our analysis of the work of the more recent work by Cumrun Vafa, then it will become its own special homepage — tabula rasa — later in the summer or early Autumn 2023.

Two statements, one by an AI bot called, Sage, and the other a graduate student from Cyprus echo Cumrun Vafa’s comments about Planck scale physics:

At the Planck scale, both physics and theory break down. The Planck scale is the smallest scale at which our current understanding of physics and theory can be applied. At this scale, the rules of quantum mechanics and general relativity, which form the basis of our current understanding of the universe, no longer apply. This is because the Planck scale is many orders of magnitude smaller than the scale at which we can currently make measurements, and our current understanding of physics and theory is not able to explain the phenomena that occur at this scale. – by Sage, an AI bot

What breaks down at the Planck scale are our existing established theories.

In General Relativity, for example, when we try to fully describe a black hole, we find that the theory predicts a physical singularity (the spacetime curvature becomes infinite) at the center. There is no true infinity in Nature… – Adam Lantos,  Limassol, Cyprus

Second email: 6 July 2023 at 10 AM

Dear Professor Dr. Cumrun Vafa:

First I noticed that someone had visited our page about your work — https://81018.com/vafa/ — so I reviewed it and my note to you from 2022. I began thinking how important your comment is when you said in a TASI 2021 lecture, “What is the Planck scale physics? We have no idea. We have no good description of Planck scale physics.” Like the dawn breaking over Marblehead, I said, “That’s it. That’s the weakest link.” I immediately edited our current homepage — https://81018.com/penultimate-revolution/#Vafa — to include that quote.

Of course, if you have any comments you’d like to add, I am all ears. I would enjoy including an update from you. Thank you.

Warmly,

Bruce

First email: Nov 9, 2022, 3:26 PM

Dear Professor Dr. Cumrun Vafa:

I’d seen your picture on our website, then discovered a special quote in an old segment about super hot temperatures. Based on it, I have added you to our string section.

Take the Planck base units, apply base-2 notation and there are at least 64 notations prior to a CERN measurement. That’s more than enough space for logic and mathematics and geometries to begin to work. Langlands, strings, and the rest of the symphony can have some fun (https://81018.com/old-theory/#4z).

So, I have enjoyed your video: No good idea of Planck Scale Physics (2021). I anticipate doing more work with your work and to writing to you again.

Thank you.

Most sincerely,

Bruce

PS. You might want to take a look at our entirely idiosyncratic look at fluctuations. -BEC

_____

No good idea of Planck Scale Physics (2017): In wrestling with the very nature of gravity and fluctuations, Cumrun Vafa says, “What is the Planck scale physics? We have no idea. We have no good description of Planck scale physics.”

_____

Analysis: First principles and basic foundations
There are two videos where Cumrun Vafa talks about his approach to the Planck scale; these are:
1. ICTP Seminar: On Cosmology and the Swampland, 2022
2. TASI 2017: Seminar: Lecture 3 Missing Corner, Planck scale physics ArXiv: The String Landscape, the Swampland, and the Missing Corner, Nov. 2017

Addendum, July 9, 2023, in process

These videos and related articles provide an excellent introduction to first principles and to the questions, “What comes first?” and “Why?” There are natural biases for-and-against certain conceptual frameworks. These build up over a lifetime of study. Among physicists who focus on particles and waves, the universe is particles and waves.

Also, for centuries now, scholars have been working to limit the influence of infinity such that the studies of infinity have also become limited. The qualities of infinity that could inform our understanding of the finite get limited, too.

Now we naively did the most simple geometries and mathematics before we began in earnest to scratch the surface of the physics and cosmology. Our preconceptions were naive and limited. Perhaps it is the only way to start. We found plenty of expert scholars who are carrying it forward. They have just been unable to define the beginning.

Listen to Cumrun Vafa (referencing quantum field theory): “We start with a kind of an action (2:36), and the action could depend on a bunch of fields, could be a bunch of gauge fields, it could be a bunch of fermions…”

Once we hear fermions, we have observable effects and we know we are within Notations 65-to-67. Vafa and today’s scholarly community have not engaged the first 64 notations. They have not parsed the universe into 202 notations. They have not intuited Planck spheres defined by the Planck base units.

Related Vafa Papers:
1. The Dark Dimension and the Swampland, with Miguel Montero, Irene Valenzuela, 2022
2. The String Landscape, Black Holes and Gravity as the Weakest Force, with Nima Arkani-Hamed, Lubos Motl, Alberto Nicolis, 2006

Coauthors (Corresponding authors - an emerging analysis)

Matilda Delgado: Finiteness and the Emergence of Dualities (2024), https://arxiv.org/search/hep-th?searchtype=author&query=Delgado%2C+M

Miguel Montero: https://arxiv.org/search/hep-th?searchtype=author&query=Montero%2C+M

Max Wiesner: https://becarios.fundacionlacaixa.org/en/max-wiesner–B004657

TASI Video

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