CENTER FOR PERFECTION STUDIES: CONTINUITY•SYMMETRY•HARMONY• USA•GOALS•March 2019
HOMEPAGES: ASSUMPTIONS|DARK|EMERGENCE|INFINITY|Inflation|INTRO|MAX|REVIEW|Scholars

Looking Back: An Open Letter

by Bruce Camber, End-of-the-week wrap up  Prior homepage: Our Universe, An On-going Construction Project

24 March 2019 / Revised and resent: 3 August 2019

Adam Becker, Author, “What Is Real?” by Basic Books, March 2018
Author and Astrophysicist
http://freelanceastro.com
RE: Nov. 15, 2018 Lecture, Harvard,  “The Trouble With Quantum Physics And Why It Matters“

Dear Adam,

I just listened to your presentation, the November 2018 lecture at Harvard about your book and quantum physics. Harvard’s Jacob Barandes was there for the Q&A.

In 1971 I was a regular at the Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science (Cohen, Wartofsky, Shimony) and got caught by a lecture about the EPR paradox and John Bell’s work. In 1977, Viki Weisskopf (MIT) helped clear the way for me to visit with Bell at CERN and for a return a few years later. I was also able to visit with David Bohm at Birkbeck College in London where with eight other graduate students we spent the better part of a day exploring points, lines, triangles and the tetrahedron. When I finally learned about Bohm’s death in 1992, I took down his book, Fragmentation and Wholeness, autographed and given to me in 1977. During what would be an honorary read, I declared out loud, “David Bohm! You never asked us what was most-simply inside the tetrahedron!” I quickly figured it out on my own.

In 1971, I was also part of the Philomorphs with Arthur Loeb at Harvard.

Forty years later, helping my nephew with his high school geometry classes, we chased that tetrahedron, going within, by dividing the edges in half, connecting those new vertices, to discover the four half-sized tetrahedrons in each corner and the octahedron in the middle. Doing the same with the octahedron, we found the half-sized octas in each of the six corners and the eight tetrahedrons, one in each face, all sharing a common centerpoint. Elegant.

Getting in the spirit of Zeno and people like Gian-Carlo Rota (Combinatorics, MIT), we chased the exponentially greater number of internal objects, back deeper and smaller within. In 45 steps, we were in the domain of particle physics. In another 67 steps within we were in the domain of the Planck scale. In 112 steps from the classroom, and we finally met Max Planck.

We multiplied by 2. In just 90 steps we were out at the edge of the universe and the age of the universe. With just 202 steps or base-2 notations or doublings, we had encapsulated the universe.  You can imagine the joy of those high school students.

Such a finding it was but we had nowhere to go with it.

We shared our chart as a rather fun STEM tool but the first 64 notations were unsettling. We had numbers but nothing to match up with them, except perhaps such illusive things as strings, preons, gravitons, instantons, and dark matter and dark energy.

How stupid. How silly.

What would you do with these numbers? Shall we speculate that planckspheres manifest at the Planck scale, and have been filling the universe for the past 13.82 billion years, thus the expansion and, and, and….?

You know so much; you are playful. What do you do with such simple logic, simple math, but entirely idiosyncratic results. Shall we just flush it down and out of our systems? Thanks.

Most sincerely,

Bruce

PS. My last efforts within this arena was in 1980 in Paris where on one day at the Institut Henri Poincare, I studied with Costa de Beauregard and then the next day with J.P. Vigier. One day Vigier took me down to d’Orsay to meet Alain Aspect. Bernard d’Espagnat also joined us.  Beyond just dropping  the names of extraordinary scholars, at no time was the simple little sphere a point of any discussion. Isn’t that our collective problem?

Comments?

###

Most recent activity: Homepage on Thursday, 6 February 2020

Editor’s note: The email just below was used as a homepage so notes could be sent to the Scientific American editors to see if, after so many years, we might get an initial analysis from one of them.

Most recent email: Friday, 26 January 2018

What if…

What if the old worldview, often called the Weltanschauung, is too small. In these times we all need a highly-integrated view of the entire universe!

What if Hawking is wrong when he says that we started from “…an infinitely hot” point but instead we started simply at a place (not a point), infinitesimally small at the Planck base units of Length and Time, and at the very small Planck Mass and Planck Charge, and the universe just quietly expanded exponentially?

Note:  Our chart emerges from the Planck Time to the Now. It has only 202 base-2 notations. There is enough granularity to see if the numbers cohere and carry some logic.

What if all these simple numbers within our chart provide a credible path, a natural inflation imposing a certain isotropy-and-homogeneity throughout the universe?

What if this natural inflation actually works for electroweak baryogenesis within the current Standard Model of Big Bang cosmology, i.e. the only parts of that theory being discounted are the initial conditions and the Inflationary Epoch?

~ Note: The chart at least posits credible concepts and numbers for the expansion.

What if we’ve had it wrong since 1716 when Leibniz forfeited the debate to Newton (he died) regarding absolute space and time; and, his insight that space-time-light are all profoundly relational?

~Note: The first second of the universe emerges between notations 143 and 144 where the Hadron Epoch picks up out of the total 202 notations to the current Age of the Universe.

I thought you might enjoy these questions.

Most sincerely,
Bruce

Third email: 5 June 2017

Dear most-distinguished editors:

In December 2011 our high school geometry class was following the simple logic of base-2 exponentiation. We had discovered an infinite regression, or at least what seemed like such, going inside the tetrahedron and octahedron. Within the tetrahedron, by dividing each edge in half, there are four smaller tetrahedrons in the corners and an octahedron in the middle. Inside the octahedron, dividing each edge in half and connecting those new vertices, there are six smaller octahedrons in each corner and a tetrahedron in each of the eight faces.

How far within can we go? Where would Zeno stop? Where would Max Planck stop?

We had fun mapping the universe using base-2 notation. We were quite surprised to find there were less than 45 steps within to get down to the size 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 90 steps we were out to the Observable Universe.

We didn’t know what we didn’t know. Are we doing something wrong? Where does our logic break down?

We were glad to find Kees Boeke’s base-10 work, but found no base-2. We kept looking for almost a year and discovered bits and pieces, but no map of the universe using base-2 with its very special granularity. For the past five years we continued poking at our 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, this “singularity” is 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 has truly wrestled with it. We must be doing something wrong, but what? Thank you.

Most sincerely,

Bruce
****************
Bruce Camber
http://81018.com
https://81018.com/chart
New Orleans

Endnotes/Footnotes: To date, no scientific publication has printed this simple letter. So we ask again, “What are we doing wrong? What are we missing? What is so sacred about big bang cosmology that a more simple explanation could not at least be explored, discussed, and if need be, discounted.”

Second email: 5 November 2013

RE:  A proposed Article for Scientific American

Possible Titles: (1) Might the Planck Length be the next big thing? (2) From a Weltanschauung to Universe View

The subject of the article: We answer the question, “How can we go from our Weltanschauung to a Universe View using base-2 geometric notation from the Planck Length to the Observable Universe in 202.34 notations (doublings or steps)?”

The story of this subject: The story tells itself. It all started in a high school geometry class exploring how four tetrahedrons and an octahedron perfectly fill a larger tetrahedron and six octahedrons and eight tetrahedrons perfectly fill the octahedron. We had those models in front of us when the question was asked, “How far within can we go?” The answer, “Not far.” Within 45 steps we were as small as a proton and within the next 67 steps we were bumping into the Planck Length. The next day we did the simple math going out and found around 90 notations to get into the range of the Observable Universe.

We tried to find this information on the web. No go. We wrote up as a Wikipedia article. It was published for a month, then deleted within a week as “original research.” So, then we just started putting it up on websites were we could. The majority of the work is now on WordPress.

The practical and theoretical significance of this subject: Today’s information glut is so chaotic and overwhelming, it seems that it actually depresses creative thinking. So, our hope in sharing this simple little table is that students will feel empowered to search for new insights to understand this universe more deeply and as we do, to instill some optimism about our common future.

How this article would differ from previous coverage of the topic (if any) in Scientific American or other media: We have tried to find it. We have sent out hundreds of emails asking people for help to explain its significance or lack of significance. It just appears to be an academic oversight. Of course, Kees Boeke and the Morrison duo (Phil & Phyllis were old friends) and the Huang boys have done a great job using base-10 to create a scale of the universe, but it is not granular or relational enough, but most importantly they did not start and incorporate with nested geometries throughout.

Your credentials for writing about the topic:
1972: Studied with Arthur Loeb (Carpenter Arts Center, Harvard)
1973-1980: Robert S. Cohen, Milic Capek, Abner Shimony, John N. Findlay et al (Boston University Graduate School and Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science)
1996-2000: Studied with Ted Bastin, John S. Bell, David Bohm, Olivier Costa de Beauregard, J.P. Vigier et al regarding the EPR Paradox;
1979: Worked with 77 leading scholars for a display project on first principles at MIT for a conference, Faith, Science and the Future
2002: Day-long session with John Conway on interiority of platonic solids
2011: Guest substitute teacher for high school geometry and in 2012 studies the works of Frank Wilczek and Roger Penrose.

Any other information that you think would make the article interesting to our audience. Since January 2012 we have been inviting critical comments and review by posting the following articles in WordPress:

1. Universe Table, An Ongoing Work. There are 202.34  notations from the Planck length to the Observable Universe. This table focuses on the Human Scale, notations 67 to 134-138. The Small Scale (1 to 67-69) and Large Scale (134-138 to 205) will follow after the dynamics and substance for the footnotes have been completed for this first table.

2. Propaedeutics for an article. A very rough draft for a journal article to analyze where we are in our work on this table and the Big Board – little universe

3. Concepts & Parameters. The first iteration was published in January 2012 within the Small Business School website.

4. Big Board – little universe. Version 1.0.0.1 was first used in a classroom on December 19, 2011 and it was first published on the web in January 2012 within the Small Business School website while the current version, 2.0.0.1, was posted in September 15, 2012. Links to the best current research within each notation are being documented and will be added.

First email:  16 May 2012

RE: How would you tell the story of this subject?

We’ve been on a discovery/uncovering process.

It all started while I was substituting for my nephew’s five high school geometry classes…
https://81018.com/home/

The practical and theoretical significance of this subject
An unexpected plot unfolded: We found 117 steps going from the smallest measurement, the Planck length, to the human scale, and then 85+ more steps out to somewhere near the edge of the observable universe, all just by multiplying the Planck length by 2, and then the subsequent results by 2.

We looked for it on Wikipedia, but didn’t find it. The auto-responder said something like, “We don’t have such an article. You can create it or ask for it to be created.”

So, we decided to tell our story. Within two weeks an MIT fellow and Wikipedia editor started a campaign to delete it as original research. What? ….from a high school class? “It is all common knowledge. They’re just silly,” we concluded. But in two weeks it was deleted. We thought, “Well, we couldn’t find any direct references to using Planck’s length multiplied by two at each step to create a scale of the universe… maybe it just hasn’t been done!”

So, we started asking around. First, we asked the first AAAS (American Academy of Arts & Sciences). They pulled a blank. The second AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) thought it a bit unusual for a high school class, but didn’t quite follow the simple logic, and said,. “Sorry I can’t be of more help.”

A NASA physicist was the first to confirm Wikipedia’s “Original Research” judgment and he also helped us to calculate the number of exponentiations or steps to scale the universe from the smallest to the largest. We learn it was just 202.34 doublings.

Here is his story behind NASA’s Joe Kolecki’s calculation:
https://81018.com/2012/06/14/kolecki/

How this article would differ from previous coverage of the topic (if any) in Scientific American or other media:
You have covered the Powers of Ten with Phil and Phyllis Morrison but not the Powers of Two as related to the Planck length.

Our goal now: Try to grasp the meaning of it. Open a discussion about it. Really see the entire universe in 202+ steps, all necessarily related notations.

We dubbed, this project, “Big Board for our little universe.”
There is a graphic of our work to date on this page:
http://smallbusinessschool.org/page883.html

There you will find this introduction:
“Perhaps this work could be called, “From praxis-to-theoria.” It is a working project. And, yes, it all started in a high school geometry class with a substitute teacher (family member) suggested to the class that they found out how many nested platonic solids would be contained in a meter before bumping into the Planck length. Because we were dividing by two, base-2 exponential or scientific notation — that’s the praxis — was used. We were there at the smallest measurement (Planck length) in just 117 steps.

“Well, what happens when you multiply by two? How many steps to the edges of the observable universe? We needed help on that so engaged a NASA scientists and the results of the BOSS (Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey). We were there in virtually no time at all. A little over 85 steps. The entire universe, from to the smallest to the largest , represented in just 202+ steps was just too elegant to keep to ourselves.”

Of course, we were studying geometry so every point was seen as a vertex for doing constructions. From a point to a line to a triangle, then a tetrahedron, octahedron, icosahedron, cube and dodecahedron, we could readily see these forms building upon each other and within each other and we could imagine, and some day we hope to postulate functions thgat inter-related these geometries. Though on our first pass through it all, we had a lot of blank lines, we are working now to fill these lines with facts or conjectures (ideas and concepts aka theoria). Eventually real data will be added.

The original chart was put together in just a week (December 12-19, 2011); the simplest math errors have been corrected in later versions. Hopefully each notation will be under the guidance of scholars and students doing research within a particular notation.

Credentials for writing about the topic:
1. High school Geometry, substitute teacher
2. Gadfly: I was a doctoral candidate in the ’70s at Boston University. My focus was on the EPR paradox.
3. Prior to that work: I was part of a think tank, Synectics Education, in Cambridge, and was part of Arthur Loeb’s Philomorphs Group at Harvard.
4. Politics: For a couple of years I had occasional dinners at the Morrision’s home at MIT (Phil & Phyllis) where we worked on the ways to reduce the Pentagon’s budget.
5. Scholars. I worked a bit with Lew Kowarski at BU and he cleared the way for my first visit with John S. Bell at CERN in 1974. Later, after getting to know Victor Weisskopf, I returned for a second visit in 1977. I also visited with David Bohm in London on that trip. In 1980 I studied with JP Vigier and Olivia Costa de Beauregard at the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris on the work of Alain Aspect at the Institut de Optics in d’Orsay. In 1979, working with the chancellor of MIT and the World Council of Churches in Geneva, I organized a first-principles display project of 77 of the world’s leading-living scholars:addressing the question, “What is Life?” in the spirit of Erwin Schrodinger’s earlier work. Reference: http://smallbusinessschool.org/page2546.html

Your Acknowledgement: “Generally speaking, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN presents ideas that have already been published in the peer-reviewed technical literature. We do not publish new theories or results of original research.”

My response: There is nothing really new here. Good scientists know the Planck length much better than we do. Of course, base-ten scientific notation has been used for over 50 years — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_View — and even 14-year olds make beautiful web pages about it. http://htwins.net/scale2/

Base-2 exponentiation, using the powers of two, is simply more granular and more relational.

References:
1. https://81018.com/2011/12/28/story/
2. https://81018.com/first/
3. https://81018.com/mit/

To look at the Wikipedia article that was deleted:
4. https://81018.com/2012/05/05/wikipedia/
5. https://81018.com/2012/03/31/notations/

Thank you.

Please note: The links have been updated as of September 2018.

Bruce E. Camber (goes to a rough timeline)
A brief narrative

Background:
Big Board-little universe Project (STEM tool)
Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science
Center for Perfection Studies
Chart: Highly-Integrated View of the Universe
Claims (since 2011)
EPR Summary
Exponential Universe
My Golden Rules, a 501(c)(3)
Small Business School

500 East Fourth Street #484
Austin, Texas 78701

Brief history (including the development of http://81018.com)

1. http://81018.com began in August 2016. The larger project began in December 2011 while coordinating a STEM study program in a secondary school. Big Board-little universe webpages emerged in many places all over the web.  Today, the most active research is within this site. Our charts of the universe are here. The most current chart is: https://81018.com/chart
2. Producer: Executive Producer, Director, co-founder of Small Business School, a weekly, half-hour television series that aired on PBS-TV throughout the USA and on the Voice of America around the world (1994-2012).
3. Information Systems Consultant: Much earlier, he was an advisor at IBM’s Watson Labs and an independent consultant for the AS/400 Division and IBM’s chairman, Lou Gerstner.
4. Research: Boston University. In his earlier research, he focused on the mind-body issues, the subject–object problem, the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen thought experiment and paradox, and Bell’s theorem. In 1979 at MIT he organized an integrative display project with 77 leading-living scholars who addressed the Schrödinger question, “What is life?” from within the first principles of their disciplines. Scholars were represented from all the major disciplines from schools around the world. Here for the first time Camber used the terms, small scale for ontology, human scale for epistemology and large scale for cosmology and astrophysics.

About
Home
Timeline: Camber, 1947-2023

A few other pages:

• Big Board-little universe
• GardenGarage: Cultivation is analogical.
• Google Scholar Citations: https://scholar.google.com/citations?Bruce_Camber
• Imagination: https://www.flickr.com/photos/atelier_tee/22521328602
• Isaaffik: https://www.isaaffik.org/
• LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/brucecamber/
• Medium: http://medium.com
• NASA SpaceApp Challenge of 2017:   https://2017.spaceappschallenge.org/
• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bruce_Camber
• STEM Magazine:  A STEM tool delights, but raises difficult questions, pp 25-28
  Navigation: Scroll the pages through the bottom arrows (third from left, Next Page).
• Twitter:   (1) https://twitter.com/BruceCamber (2) https://twitter.com/81018CMBR  (3) https://twitter.com/Bibo_lu
• Whitehead-Waterman:  https://whiteheadwaterman.wordpress.com/

__________

Narrative. In 1970 Bruce Camber began his initial studies of the 1935 Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) thought experiment. Also in 1970, he became active within the Boston Colloquium for the Philosophy of Science at BU. In 1972 he was asked by Robert S. Cohen, then chairman of the Department of Physics and co-founder of the Center for Philosophy and History of Science, to.visit with Harold Oliver of the Boston University School of Theology. Oliver had been one of the last scholars to be on a sabbatical with Fred Hoyle (just before Hoyle retired from Cambridge University). From those discussions with Oliver and based on (1).his research of perfected states in space-time through work within a think tank in Cambridge, Massachusetts, (2).his work within the Boston University Department of Physics and the colloquiums, and (3).his work with Arthur Loeb (Harvard) and the Philomorphs, he was invited to come to study particularly to focus on issues around Newton’s concept of absolute space and time.  In 1977, with introductions by Victor Weisskopf (MIT) and Lew Kowarski (BU), he went to CERN on two occasions, primarily to discuss the EPR paradox with John Bell. In 1979, he coordinated a project with the chancellor of MIT and the World Council of Churches to explore shared first principles between the major academic disciplines represented by 77 peer-selected, leading-living scholars. In 1980 he spent a semester with Olivier Costa de Beauregard and Jean-Pierre Vigier at the Institut Henri Poincaré focusing on the EPR tests of Alain Aspect at the Orsay-based Institut d’Optique. In 1994, following the death of another mentor, David Bohm, Camber re-engaged simple interior geometries based on several earlier discussions with Bohm and his book, Fragmentation & Wholeness. In 1997 he made the industrial molds to mass produce the plastic tetrahedrons and octahedrons used in the images within this website. In 2001, he spent a day with John Conway at Princeton to discuss the simplicity of the interior parts of the tetrahedron and octahedron. In 2011, he challenged a high school geometry class to use base-2 exponential notation to follow the interior structure of basic geometries and the 202 doublings from the Planck Length and to the edges of the Observable Universe. In June 2016, he began consolidating all his writings within his website, http://81018.com, and began work on the horizontally-scrolled chart. More…

Disclaimer: Our charts and discussion are our first time to make a comparative analysis between the big bang theory and our Quiet Expansion. Silly errors are inevitable. We are neophytes, not scholars, within these fields, so please point out any of our failures with logic, math, and physics. We will be most grateful. -BEC

It lacks continuity, symmetry and harmony.

In the Big Board-little universe model using base-2 notation from the Planck Time to the Age of the universe, the entire physical universe is contained within just over 200 notations that are highly-integrated and totally-predictive. Notations are also known as clusters, doublings, groups, sets or steps. Within the first second of the universe (between notations 143 and 144), there is more than enough “natural inflation” from the Planck Charge to get “things” going. As a result of studying and working with this model since December 2011, there are many-many facets to explore, however one of the most important is that this model logically suggests that time is derivative and that the finite and the infinite are perhaps best understood in terms of continuity, symmetry and harmony.¹  Further, it appears to follow that the big bang theory is flawed and it is long overdue that we unplug it and take it off life support.

Continuity. Though an unusual way to define infinity, especially in the face of quantum indeterminacy, continuity throughout the universe is the bedrock of science, logic, and rational thought. Numbers clarify this continuity. Carried out a billion places, the universe and its systems around us replicate day after day with utmost precision. Within this model, continuity is more fundamental than time; it begets time.

Symmetry. The second face of the infinite is symmetry. Though so much of life is asymmetrical, the deepest examination of any physical thing begins to reveal deeper symmetries. Numbered relations define those symmetries and the universe appears to be tiled and tessellated deeply within every notation throughout the model. Here symmetry is more fundamental than space; it begets space.

Harmony. Speculating, it is hypostatized that two symmetries begin interacting within a notation and then across notations, and though possibly not quite perfect, the interaction of the symmetries perfects the moment for the observer or for the notations involved. Therefore, we have moments of perfection within our experiences of the universe.²

Our studies. At this point in our studies, there is not much more we can say about how the infinite defines the model and what the model says about the very nature of the infinite. These three insights, although reflective of the model, in part come out of a study of a moment of perfection in 1972,³ then from studies of the book, Finite and Infinite: A Philosophical Essay (Austin Farrer, Oxford, Dacre Press, Westminster, 1943), and from an application to a business model.⁴

These three qualities became the bedrock for our model of the universe and for discussions about the shared nature of the finite and infinite.

What difference does it make? First, it is a clear contrast to the nihilism of big bang cosmology. Building in strength and popularity over the past 30 years, that nihilism has had a lot to do the fraying of our little world. So much is out of control and spinning apart. Money is not the issue. What we believe and how we believe is. Hope is. Charity is. Integrity is.

What is 5000 to 13.8 billion years?  The finite and infinite relation has been the focus of humanity for as long as we have been recording our ever-so-short history. In light of 13.8+ billion years, five thousand years of records is, of course, quite short. We’ve just begun to make sense of it all.

Today in history. The finite is usually associated with physical, limited things. The infinite is often capitalized and associated with godly things, the eternal and everlasting. To our knowledge, Max Tegmark is the first theoretical physicist who has suggested that the concept of the infinite be abandoned. His rationale is that it gets in the way. He cannot make it work for the science he wants to create. Within these many articles, we hope to convince him, Hawking, Guth and so many others to re-engage our simple definition of the infinite. It does not require a religion or religious beliefs. Notwithstanding, it also doesn’t fly in the face of those who believe in the Infinite.

We can all begin to tolerate each other.

This is our simple introduction to a very large topic and we will return to this page often to expand its range and its depth.

¹ A general introduction was the prior homepage.
² This construct was introduced within these pages at the end of the year, December 2015.
³ This construct goes back to work in 1972 at both Synectics Education Systems in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the Harvard Philomorphs with Arthur Loeb and Buckminster Fuller.
⁴ The original construct was used as the foundation of a business model for a weekly television series, Small Business School, that Bruce Camber and Hattie Bryant started in 1994. It aired on PBS-TV stations throughout the USA and on the Voice of America around the world for over 50 seasons (2012).