Mike Holderness
New Scientist Magazine
London, England

Email: 24 January 2021 at 10:06 PM 

Dear Mike:

In 2011 in our high school geometry class we created a wonderful map of the universe starting with our little tetrahedron (3.3 inches on the side). We divided the edges by two, connected the new vertices and found four smaller tetrahedrons in each corner and an octahedron in the middle. Inside the octahedron there are six smaller octahedrons in each corner and a tetrahedron in each of the eight faces.

How far within can we go? How far would Zeno go? …Max Planck?

We were quite surprised to find it took less than 45 steps within to get down to the sizes of particle physics and just another 67 steps within to get down to the Planck scale.

The next day we multiplied by two. In about 22 steps we were out to the International Space Station. Another 35 steps we were on the edges of the Solar System. In another 33 more steps, we’re on the edges of the Observable Universe. That’s just 202 steps from the smallest possible length to the largest possible length.  See: https://81018.com/big-board/   We had fun mapping the universe using base-2 notation (doublings)! See: https://81018.com/chart/

We didn’t know what we didn’t know. Just 202 notations!?!

Is it a mathematically-integrated map of the universe? Could it be a model? We asked ourselves, “What are we doing wrong? Where does our logic break down?”

We found Kees Boeke’s base-10 work, but no base-2 on the web. We kept looking for almost a year and found bits and pieces, but found no map of the universe using base-2 and its very special granularity. For the past five years we continued poking at our little map. We added Planck Time, then the other Planck base units and said, “Voila. A Base-2 Map of the Universe. Totally predictive, it is 100% simple mathematics but it tells a radically different story about the universe.  Starting with the Planck base units and all the constants that define each, there is no “singularity” here; it’s a traffic jam, more like an “alphabet-and-number soup” it has so many equations defining it. Naturally inflating, it seems to encapsulate all the appropriate epochs of the big bang without a bang.

It is all a bit much to swallow; it is altogether too simple; and hardly anybody else has truly wrestled with it. What are we doing wrong?  Thank you.

Most sincerely,

Bruce Camber