Scale invariance from Planck Length to the Universe

By Bruce E. Camber

Background. In 1971, I was involved with Arthur Loeb of the Carpenter Arts Center at Harvard University. He had a group called the Philomorphs. Bucky Fuller was an occasional visitor. We met in a model-building shop in the attic of Sever Hall within the old Harvard Yard. My interests were industrial problem-solving, basic structures, creativity, and a deeper understanding of the role of geometries within physics. I had become a groupie of Harvard’s Thomas Kuhn and his writings, especially the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. I had made it a practice to go visit scholars whose work was especially inspiring. When permission was granted, I would go for a visit prepared with at least three evocative questions based on that scholar’s work. It was a modus operandi that started in college and within several political action groups.

I didn’t know, but learned.

Then, I worked with a model-mold maker and geometer to make clear plastic models of both basic structures. In 2001, I was in Fine Hall talking with surreal geometer, John Conway about these structures. When I gifted him with my model of an octahedron, I asked, “How can we not know so much about basic geometry? We’ve barely scratched the surface of the octahedron. He was fascinated actually to be able to observe the four hexagonal plates within every octahedron. It was an epiphany.

Challenges. In 2007 several industrial cranes had collapsed around the country causing death and destruction. Also, Francis Collins and others were replicating the work of Watson & Crick, but at a deeper level. Instead of the double-helix and DNA, they were looking at the actual definitions of DNA. I sent Francis Collins my first note which was followed over the years by others. At the same time, I filed for a patent with the USPTO. Although both Alexander Graham Bell and Richard Buckminster Fuller independently created space frames, neither went far enough with an explanation of their strength and the necessity for the Bucky’s octet truss.

At a deeper level, that structure dubbed a “totline” in our vernacular, was also seen as the infrastructure, the actual making of the structures of RNA-DNA. The reception was not enthusiastic.

6 May 2024: Patent approved.