W. Hugh Woodin, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Articles: To Settle Infinity Dispute, Wolchover, Quanta Magazine, Nov. 2013
(Scientific American picks up the Wolchover story, 2013)
ArXiv (11)
Homepage(s): dblp, PhilPeople, Contemporary Mathematics (2015)
Publications:

• Woodin, W. Hugh (1999), The Axiom of Determinacy, Forcing Axioms, and the Nonstationary Ideal, Walter de Gruyter, doi:10.1515/9783110804737, ISBN 3-11-015708-X, MR 1713438

• Woodin, W. Hugh (2001), “The continuum hypothesis. I” (PDF), Notices of the American Mathematical Society, 48 (6): 567–576, ISSN 0002-9920, MR 1834351

• Woodin, W. Hugh (2001b), “The Continuum Hypothesis, Part II” (PDF), Notices of the AMS, 48 (7): 681–690

• Woodin, W. Hugh (2005), “The continuum hypothesis”, in Cori, Rene; Razborov, Alexander; Todorčević, Stevo; et al. (eds.), Logic Colloquium 2000, Lect. Notes Log., vol. 19, Urbana, IL: Assoc. Symbol. Logic, pp. 143–197, MR 2143878

Twitter: Wolchover update, Baez
Wikipedia: born April 23, 1955
YouTube: World Science Festival (2013), On the Mathematical Necessity of the Infinite, 2020

Most recent and Second email: 17 July 2022 at 11:27 AM

Dear Prof. Dr. W. Hugh Woodin:

If the Planck base units are meaningful, and that seems to have been settled in the past twenty or so years, does it describe a starting point for spacetime? I have naively concluded that it does. When Planck’s efficacy was questioned, I dropped back to the 1874 work of George Johnstone Stoney and suggest the actual numbers be understood to be symbolic yet still a real reality.

So, from where does everything come? I redefined infinity in light of three most basic facts of pi, and say, “Continuity-symmetry-harmony.” All other discussions are considered personal. Of course, that may well be just too naive in light of the work of Hilbert, Gödel and Woodin. Yet, if we can show from where imperfections originate, maybe we have something a little different. Assuming perfection is the sphere and pi, the first imperfections may well be geometric; and, Aristotle may have unwittingly missed that key marker, five tetrahedrons creating a gap. It seems nobody recognized the five-octahedral gap. It is too simple, but it looks good coupled with the five-tetrahedral gap. I think there is something to it. That little cluster looks like a logic gate and when you add the twenty-tetrahedral icosahedron in place of a five-tetrahedral unit, complexity-and-possibility are multiplied.

I seem to be off in la-la land, but it might be of some interest to a scholar with depth of knowledge and perspective. Is there anything interesting going on here?

Thank you.

Warmly,

Bruce

First email: July 7, 2022, 2:33 PM

Dear Prof. Dr. W. Hugh Woodin:

While a senior in Wilmington High School (1965), my father and I went to an “all-night” teach-in at Memorial Hall upon which I joined the Students for a Democratic Society (which met in the basement of Sever Hall until we were thrown off campus). Six years later I was back with Arthur Loeb and Bucky Fuller (Philomorphs) which met in the attic of Sever. Then a few years later I was with Arthur McGill over at HDS where nine graduate students pried open Finite and Infinite by Austin Farrer.  

My infinity statement is here; I was pleased to find yours, Infinity captivates the imagination; and then, even more pleased to engage your Ω-logic. Thank you for all that you do.

Warmly,

Bruce

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Bruce E. Camber
https://81018.com