El Naschie Discussion

I don't understand why a well-established Elsevier Journal such as Chaos, Solitons & Fractals with the highest impact factor amongst all international Journals of non-linear dynamics should be considered moderately difficult to find. The solution for the present deadlock in theoretical physics must come from an interdisciplinary direction. Consequently, a particle physicist must read across the artificial limits of specialization if he wants to impact particle physics. Interestingly both Garrett Lisi and Mohamed El Naschie have both a non-linear dynamics background. Nonlinear dynamics, chaos and fractals are by definition interdisciplinary.

A.Kasim

To Ray Munroe

You are almost right but not completely in stating the difference between you and El Naschie. Your theory is essentially a so-called Technicolor. Elnaschie states clearly that his is transfinitely exact. Both of you are invoking far more particles than could be ever discovered. However, we are all talking about energy under one tesla as far as the standard model is concerned. The rest is theory - to come down to one tesla in a consistent manner. String theory is no different. They work with 8064 coming from 496 and end up with 126 or 63. El Naschie comes from 8872 down to 685 the 548 and ends up with 137 or 68.5. You start with 684 and if you do all correctly you end with something very close to 68.4 or 136.8. There is no fiddling here. It is all consistent with the E-Infinity action principle which El Naschie derives from the sphere packing density in higher dimensional space by summing over all exceptional Lie groups in analogy to Feynman's path integral.

Sonja Kaliski

Dear A. Kasim,

Yes, all of my degrees are in Physics from the same University (Florida State U.), and all of my journal articles are about Particle Physics simulation and prediction. That must appear to be a narrow field of study, and you probably wonder how I ever fell out of the mainstream? I also studied Solid State Physics and Plasma Physics in graduate school at the University of Texas. I guess you could say that crystalline symmetry groups and thermodynamics contaminated my Particle Physics Worldview. I agree that we need more "generalists" to balance out all of the "specialists" in this field of study.

Certainly, the local science library subscribes to Elsevier's Chaos, Solitons & Fractals Journal, but I don't personally, and $31.50 US for one article via internet is a steep price.

Dear Sonja Kaliski,

No, my theory is not Technicolor. I first developed a version of Quantum Statistical Grand Unified Theory in 1981, while I was a graduate student at U. Texas. I understood that I needed an extra level of quantization, and I relied on Technicolor for that purpose. My Quantum Statistical Professor didn't like my usage of Technicolor, Technicolor went out of fashion, and I later realized that String Theory could supply this extra level of quantization. I think the difference is that Technicolor relies on deeper levels of fundamental constituents (i.e. going from composite protons to composite quarks to fundamental preons?) whereas my Hyperflavor electrons are super-massive fundamental particles that probably better correspond to Kaluza - Klein electrons. Their greater masses might make Hyperflavor electrons look like a new generation of leptons beyond the tau, thus the "flavor" part of the name. And we might have lattices of fundamental fermions in hyperspace, thus the "hyper" part of the name.

Yes, we need to first understand the physics under 1 TeV. I hope that the LHC can find the light Higgs boson. If not, the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC) will have a better Signal to Noise ratio for certain types of events (I studied that machine's performance for my 1996 doctoral thesis - It takes too long to build these machines because too many people believe that the Standard Model or the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model is all there is and no one wants to spend $20,000,000,000 US to measure the next two decimal places of a particle mass or an astrophysical constant). Is Supersymmetry at the Weak Scale of 1 TeV, or my Gravity Scale of 20,000 TeV? We need to carefully analyze the cosmic ray data at the 10,000 to 100,000 TeV scale and determine if we can justify a super-collider even more powerful than both the LHC and ILC.

136.8 is close to 137. But I have extra Supersymmetric and singlet states that aren't part of the 684, and thought I was working in 12 dimensions, not 10?

Sincerely, Ray Munroe

Dear Ray,

In this letter I just want to clarify once and for all times this point about numbers because we all feel very strongly about it. There is a deeply seated misunderstanding in this respect which must be eradicated. No dear friend, 137, 248 and 684 are not just numbers. Of course they are numbers but not in this case. They have been derived with a particular meaning from a definite model attached to what we human beings call physical meaning. So let me stress this point because people do not understand the difference between numbers, number theory, numerical simulation and the number coming out from a theory.

If we are searching and we are searching for the number of Higgs, what do you think the end result would be - a fancy Greek letter with many tensor indices? Of course not, we will find a number, namely the number of particles. Even if somebody decides to denote it with a Cyrillic character, we have to attach to this character a number. In fact the most important thing in superstring theory is a number - namely 496 massless gauge bosons that we start with. It could not have been 500 without changing the theory. Our standard model is happy with only 12. However we have to add other things to it, namely 48 fermions.

Numerology is different. For instance Wolfgang Pauli died in a hospital suffering from cancer. The number of the room where he was hospitalized was 137. Now a superstitious scientist will feel strongly that this is a hint from a being living in higher dimensions that 137 is the secret of everything and Providence made it in such a way that the room number where a great theoretical physicist moved from the here to the hereafter is 137. I am of course exaggerating. But our procedure is by George extremely different. You remember that using Weinberg-Elnaschie enlightened counting, we reasoned that we have 63 elementary particles. We didn't count up and down as different. If we do and of course we should, then we just multiply by 2 and get 126. If we want to consider a super-symmetric theory, then we have to have equal number of fermions and bosons and that will require us to multiply by 2 once more and we get 252. This result we reinforced using a sophisticated theory, Heterotic superstring. We start by Fock space - multiplying left and right movers we get 504. This is exactly equal to the dimension of the simple linear Lie group for n= 8. It is simply 63 x 8 = 504.

If you attempt to reduce it to what we have just counted 252, then you divide by 2. Said differently, we know that the holographic boundary of our 496 exceptional Lie manifold is Klein-modular curve with 336 symmetries. This is a well-known result and you find it using the simple Lie symmetry group for n = 7 which comes to 7 x 48 = 336. The corresponding instanton density is as well known 24. You find that in any textbook on superstring theory. The total number of instantons is simply the multiplication of the holographic boundary 336 x 24 which comes to 8064. This is exactly the number of the first level of massless states of Heterotic string theory.

To come down to the supersymmetric model you divide by 32 degrees of freedom of the corresponding spinors and the result is our 252. Should you have wanted to find the 63, you should have of course divided by the maximal total number of degrees of freedom of the spinors which is 128.

Now that we understand it all, it is really trivial. But it wasn't always that trivial. The snag is however that this is all approximation. The correct theory should have given us 137 particles or 274 particles and sparticles as a super symmetric model. So dear Ray, all these numbers didn't come from empty vacuum or transcendental meditation. These are all stiff analytical results. To get the 24 you must understand the theory of Kahler manifold and you can find then the Betti number and add them together or you use the wedge product of the field strength and integrate over the 4-dimensional volume. The exact value is however 26.18033989 and to find it you have to consider transfinitely fuzzy 4-dimensional Kahler manifold. This all can be found in the work of Elnaschie.

But now to a big surprise even for me. Please look into figure 15 on page 594 of volume 30 issue 3 November 2006 of Chaos, Solitons & Fractals. The title of the paper where you can find this figure is: "Elementary prerequisites for E-Infinity" by M. S. Elnaschie. In this figure he shows us a Penrose-like fractal tiling but with a hetoretic string proportionality. I should have said transfinite hetoretic superstring proportionality. It is incredible but the invariant area is exactly equal to 685.410968. You may recall that this is also the exact volume of twice M4 manifold and I would bet my bottom dollar that if you make your E12 transfintely exact then its dimension will be precisely the same number. Now could you put your hand on your heart and swear this is numerology - Of course not. In one stroke, in this ingenious combination which Sir Roger Penrose in England, Alain Connes in France and Medhat Gazzaly also in France suspected, Regge quantum gravity, hetoretic string, hyperbolic manifold, exceptional Lie and stein-spaces and your E12 are connected. The only person who ever noticed this and completed the theory is Mohamed Elnaschie. However, he clearly didn't know that your E12 existed as a single exceptional group. You see after E8 the Lie algebra is infinite dimensions. Elnaschie knew that there is something like E12 existed but only as a super position of many compact and non-compact exceptional Lie group. But he never knew that a single group E12 could exist. We have not seen your analysis and I haven't communicated with Elnaschie and I don't know his views. But I suspect he will agree with what I have said here because I studied his work meticulously. He is of course a nonlinear dynamics man in the first place. He is an engineer by training and otherwise a self-taught person. Very frequently he knows the answer before he could find rigorous mathematics to support it. But this particular piece I think is a brilliant combination brought about by luck circumstances for which Garrett Lisi has played a major role.

I sincerely hope we will never come back again to this number business and as I heard Elnaschie say quite often: "You have to use everything at your disposal to understand the phenomena". All tools are valid - experimental, theoretical, philosophical and number theoretical including numerical simulation. That is why the Americans were so successful at many things which eluded the sophisticated Europeans. Bobacki is great but for my money Poincare is greater and Einstein is supreme.

We have to make everything as simple as possible but not simpler. That is what the great Albert used to say.

Have a nice weekend.

Bob Meyers

Dear Bob,

All I am saying is that the concept of Alpha Bar Theory is bigger than the numbers 137, 128, etc. And the concept of TOE is bigger than the numbers 248, 684, etc. Your observation of the near equality of El Naschie's Sum of One and Two Stein Spaces versus Five Alpha Bar versus E12 is interesting. And A. Kasim's observation of the near equality of El Naschie's M4 with E8 versus E12 is also interesting. Because they originated from different concepts and nearly intersected, these may be the kinds of "enlightened counting" numbers that follow from theory.

I agree that we should use all of the tools at our disposal. I called my book "New Approaches Towards A Grand Unified Theory" because I used more than one approach towards a GUT/ TOE. Prof. El Naschie has similarly derived alpha bar different ways as well. Have you had an opportunity to Read Chapters 3 through 5 of my book? (Please use the free preview at Lulu.com). These chapters approach GUT from a thermodynamic perspective, and they include the fine structure constant and a connection with Dirac's Large Numbers Hypothesis (10^40) - which like, Alpha Bar Theory, is another old and interesting concept that may contain "enlightenment" beyond the mere numbers.

My own counting of the degrees of freedom (dgf) in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is 260, not 252. I think we are modeling and counting the Higgs sector differently. We have 16 fermions per generation times three generations times (2 matter/ anti-matter) times (2 fermion/ sfermion) which gives 192 dgf. Add (8 gluons 1 photon 3 W/Z 1 graviton) times (2 matter/ anti-matter) times (2 boson/ bosino) and we get 52 more dgf associated with our force-carrying bosons. Now the MSSM Higgs sector includes two complex doublet scalar fields. This is 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 more Higgs dgf: Light Higgs, Heavy Higgs, H, H-, Pseudoscalar Higgs, and longitudinal polarizations for the Z, W and W-. Note that the Standard Model only introduces 4 more Higgs dgf (Light Higgs and longitudinal polarizations for the Z, W and W-), but this formulation is inconsistent with the definition of mass in the MSSM (Most, if not all, of the Supersymmetric particles are expected to have significant masses, so we can't approximate down/ strange/ bottom squark and sneutrino masses as zero, and ignore these consequences). And the MSSM introduces eight more "Higgsinos" that are expected to mix eigenstates with "Zinos/ photinos" and "Winos" to form Neutralinos and Charginos, respectively. Now 192 52 16 equals 260 degrees of freedom. E8 has an order of 248. But if we are allowed 8-dimensional singlet states (similar to my decomposition of E12), then we could justify 256 (or 264 with two singlet sets) degrees of freedom contained by E8 - possibly large enough to contain either a 252-plet or a 260-plet. Alpha bar at the Z mass scale is 127.918. The number 128 times two might imply the 256 of E8 plus one 8-dimensional singlet. Such a relationship in these "enlightened" numbers (alpha bar and the MSSM dgf) might imply weak-scale SUSY, which would please many researchers at the LHC and the proposed ILC. This is somewhat consistent with the SM Higgs sector, but inconsistent with the MSSM Higgs sector. I understand that any of us could easily argue that there are many Higgs/ Goldstone bosons in an obviously broken symmetry, and that THE HIGGS of the Standard Model and the longitudinal polarizations of Z, W and W- are the most relevant particle states to worry about.

Creativity and Sophistication are both important. If you, Bob Meyers, want to legitimize E12 and make it more sophisticated, that's fine with me. I know my mathematical strengths and weaknesses, and I feel much more comfortable modeling a problem than proving a theorem. I just hope that this free exchange of ideas can push Humanity closer to a better understanding of our Universe. Meanwhile, I have read a few of Prof. El Naschie's papers, contacted Nasr Ahmed, and hope to understand more Alpha Bar Theory soon.

And we are still waiting to hear from the mysteriously absent Garrett...

Sincerely, Ray Munroe

Dear Bob and Garrett,

I have a revision to the degrees of freedom in a Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. For the same reason that we can't have only one Higgsino, we also can't have only one gravitino. The gravitino is a spin 3/2 fermion. As such, a massless gravitino requires left, right, matter, anti-matter dgf's for a total of four (my prior counting had two). If the gravitino is massive, then we also need to count its spin 1/2 projections - which brings the number of dgf's up to eight. Minimal Supersymmetry doubles these numbers with spin-2 tensor bosons. The SUSY partner to the other gravitino spin state might be one of my WIMP-Gravitons - perhaps F3. The minimum number of degrees of freedom for the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model is 264 (if the gravitino is massless) or 272 (if the gravitino is massive). Within the Standard Model, we would consider these particles to be hypothetical - along with all of the extra bosons (Goldstone/ other Higgs, X, Y, etc.) that must have broken the original GUT symmetry. But within the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, these dgf's are fundamental to SUSY theory.

Garrett - This is not a problem for E8. E8 contains 248 dgf's in a single representation, but 8-dimensional singlets allow us to include 264 dgf's in one E8 plus two singlet sets (248 2 x 8 = 264). Because these extra Higgsino and gravitino states are not part of the Standard Model, it is appropriate to place these odd states in our extra singlets. I'm still a fan of E8. I think E12 condenses down into E8. If E12 is truly "the mother of all exceptional groups" as Bob previously stated, then it is only natural that it should decompose into the sum of all exceptional groups, including E8.

Bob - El Nashcie's derivation of Alpha Bar from the Standard Model dgf's is still OK. But we need to reformulate the derivation of Alpha Bar from the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model dgf's. Would you like to e-mail me at mm_buyer@comcast.net, so we don't have to post all of our rough ideas on this blog site?

Sincerely, Ray Munroe

Dear Bob, A. Kasim, and Sonja,

I have been reading some of Prof. El Naschie's work on E Infinity, and I think I have a better understanding of the similarities between us. When we use the symplictic transformation of a square proportioned according to the dimensional hierarchy of heterotic string theory, we get 10, 16+k, 26+k and 42+2k string dimensions (Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 30 (2006) 579-605, pg. 594, Fig. 15). If we truncate these numbers, then 16 x 42 gives us the 672 roots of E12 (except that E12 has condensed from the 16 dimensional 16 x 42 down to a 12 dimensional 12 x 56 that might be more compatible with the SO(8) 28-plets of Hyperflavor). By construction, (42+2k)/(16+k) = phi^(-2) = phi + 2, the inverse golden mean squared, 2.618. If we keep our decimal places, then (16+k) x (42+2k) = 685.41 ~ 5 alpha bar. Of Course, Bob noted the similarities with 5 alpha bar, and A. Kasim noted the similarities with (26+k) x (26+k) = 685.41, and Sonja noted the similarities between the transfinitely exact 685.41 and the integer part (2)(342) = 684 of the total elements in E12. E12 might be the closest representation to E Infinity in an integer number of dimensions.

Is it a problem that our apparently 16-dimensional 16 x 42 has condensed into the apparently 12-dimensional 12 x 56 roots of E12? In my book "New Approaches Towards A Grand Unified Theory", I expected our 26 dimensional string to be composed of 4-dimensional Spacetime plus a dominant 3-brane (that decomposes into gravity and a 2-brane Weakbrane with sequestered Higgs and Hyperflavor bosons) plus a less-dominant 3-brane (our WIMP-gravitons and Grand bosons are sequestered on this Gravity-brane) plus three hierarchal 2-branes plus two very weak 5-branes (that may also decompose into 3-branes and 2-branes). Effectively, we are modeling the three hierarchal 2-branes (dimensions 11 through 16) as one 2-brane (dimensions 11 and 12), and collapsing 16 dimensions down into 12.

In my book, I expected the 12-dimensional E12 to condense into two 6-dimensional E6-Primes (yes, I used another exceptional group that doesn't properly exist). The "surface area" of a unit radius hypersphere is maximized for 7 dimensions, whereas the "volume" of such a hypersphere is maximized for 5 dimensions (see the same El Naschie article above). Six dimensions are the ideal compromise between maximum area and maximum volume.

Dear Bob,

I concede that I overlooked a possibility with gravitinos, although I don't think that this option applies to Higgsinos (look up "Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model" on Wikipedia), and that is Majorana spinors. If our gravitino is a Majorana spinor, then we have 260 degrees of freedom (dgf). If our gravitino is a massless Dirac spinor, then we have 264 dgf's. If our gravitino is a massive Dirac spinor with spin 3/2 and spin 1/2 projections, then we have 272 dgf's. Which is the minimal choice? 260, Of Course! Which is the most likely choice? 272 for three reasons: 1) Considering the fact that neutrinos have mass, there are no clear examples of Majorana spinors in Nature, 2) Most, if not all, Sparticles are expected to be massive, and 3) It works better with E8 and 8-dimensional singlets than 260 does - the fact that 260 is not divisible by the rank 8 of E8 implies that something is missing.

Now 272 divided by two is 136, which is very close to alpha bar in the low-energy limit, 137.036. I'm not sure how to make up the difference. I have noticed that the non-integer part of alpha bar, 0.035999679, is close to 1/28 (to within 1% difference), and Hyperflavor theory is full of 28-plets. Do you have any ideas?

If I don't hear anything from you or Garrett, I will assume you are busy publishing your ideas...

Sincerely, Ray Munroe

Dear Dr. Munroe,

I have been following your discussion with Dr. Bob Meyers. I am not familiar with your work nor with that of Dr. Lisi, but I have attended several lectures of Professor Mohamed El Naschie in Germany. I suspect you probably know what I will say but I will say it any way. There is nothing called alpha bar equals 137 full stop. The 137 is the 128, is the 127, is the 42, is the 26, is 1. It is all alpha bar but measured at different energies. So if we say the electromagnetic fine structure constant we are strictly speaking wrong, it is anything but constant. It is a function of energy. Some people think the standard model is resolution independent. This is fundamentally wrong. It is of course only weakly resolution dependent. In a sense it is not reflecting its true fractal nature but it is a fractal. You said in your last message you would like to calculate alpha bar for a minimally super symmetric standard model. Strictly speaking this is a little bit higher energy and alpha will not be exactly 137. What is nice about El Naschie`s theory is that all of this is part and parcel of the theory. Everything in his theory is resolution dependent.

Apart of that there is a slight misunderstanding about the theoretical and the experimental value of alpha bar at our energy scale. Please note that 137.036 is approximately the experimental value. El Naschie`s transfinite exact theoretical value is 137.082039325. This is equal to 20 multiplied with the inverse golden mean to the power of 4. You should not mix one with the other. This may seem as very small differences. However we know better from nonlinear dynamics. The butterfly effect is very often present in high energy particle physics. I can assure you two things. First the number of particles in the standard model is exactly 137 elementary particles and your E12 is definitely correct and I understand that some people have checked the work and found the exact integer dimension is 685, one larger than what you calculate. Congratulations for you discovery.

I predict that you will hear much great news about it, sooner rather than later.

Dear Gerhard,

Thank you for your observations. All of these ideas are merging. I am writing a paper about them now. I will relay it to Prof. El Naschie via Nasr Ahmed within the next two or three weeks.

Sincerely, Ray Munroe

Dr. Ray Munroe

You may fine the following paper by two brilliant lady professors useful for your work: Golden differential geometry, published in Chaos, Solitons & Fractals doi: 10.1016/j.chaos.2008.04.007. There is also a new paper by El Naschie 'Deriving the largest expected number of elementary particles in the standard model from the maximal compact subgroup H of the exceptional Lie group E7(-5), Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, doi:10.1016/j.chaos2008.06.004 both of which can be found on Elsevier's Science Direct website.

I think what people are not realizing is that many things change when you move to wild topology. In this case you can change the current algebra by fusion algebra. The classical E8 of Dr. Garrett Lisi does not include this vital move. El Naschie also did not emphasize this point which in my humble opinion is more important than anything else. In a 2002 paper El Naschie touched upon this subject but did not return to it again in sufficient depth. I think his best paper is 'Wild topology, hyperbolic geometry and fusion algebra of high energy particle physics, Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Vol. 13, p. 1935-1945 (2002).

In this paper El Naschie chartered the solution for the problems with classical quantum field theory and essentially introduced the modification of E8.

If we go back in history we will find that Rene Descartes investigated in rudimentary form something similar. This is the logarithmic spiral. To design it you have to follow golden mean proportionality. The result is an incredible connection to a random Cantor set with the golden mean as a Hausdorff dimension. So you have here logarithmic scaling connected to the golden mean connected to Cantor sets and Hausdorff dimension. El Naschie mentioned all of that in a paper entitled The Fibonacci code behind super strings and P-Branes. An answer to M. Kaku's fundamental question . Again he did not stress it as I had hoped he would do. Another problem comes from all these esoteric who consider the logarithmic spiral the secret of life. All such inflated claims repel serious scientists. It might be true but to put it like that is wild speculation and makes people afraid to deal with the golden mean. This is not science, it is sociology and psychology of main stream thinking, so one has to be careful here. El Naschie was maybe too careful.

Let me give you a final advice. Publish your paper on E12 as soon as you can. If you can, publish it tomorrow but in a refereed journal. Wishing you the best,

Ken Blanchard

Dear Ken,

Thank you for the advice. Are you the "One Minute Manager" Ken Blanchard? If so, I have read that book. If not, I understand the confusion. There are at least four different Ray Munroe's on the internet, and that doesn't include similar names like Lee Ray, Raymond, Munro, or Monroe.

Sincerely, Ray Munroe

Dear Lou

Your questions are correct and basic. No, these are mathematical dimensions related to the structure of E8 itself, that is to say unless you are embedding E8 in spacetime and the 57 dimensions are particularly relevant. Having said that you must understand that advanced theory intermingles real spacetime symmetry and internal symmetry. That is an important aspect about which many physicists such as A. Connes, M. El Naschie and much earlier von Neumann have written and lectured. This intermingling between spacetime dimension and internal dimension is in a limited form a tool of string theory. It is a little bit confusing I agree but one can get used to it. As for Munroe I think he should also take notice of your remark and read El Naschie's work carefully. He will find there a solution to his E12. He may consult some of El Naschie's recent papers on Elsevier's site Science Direct.

Hi,

I found a cool interpretation for the dimension of Munroe. It is given by this El Naschie in a paper on the net 'A derivation of the fine structure constant from the exceptional Lie group hierarchy of the micro cosmos'. OK, on page 820 of this journal, the third equation says the sum of all exceptional groups from 1 to 12 = 685. Then on the fourth equation he writes that the same sum is equal to 5 x 137. Then we have equation number five and he writes the intrinsic dimension of E8 x 12 is = 684. This is 57 x 12 = 684. In other words, he gives Munroe's dimension an almost cosmological interpretation. It is 12 x the intrinsic dimension of E8 and the intrinsic dimension of E8 may be the structural constant of the universe. Actually the equation has a misprint because it is typed as 648 but is clearly 684 just one less than 685. The next equation makes it very clear by dividing the total sum of 685 by the 12, which is the number of the exceptional Lie groups involved in the sum, and gets 57.083 almost that of the conjectured universe structural constant. Finally he summed all that in a Theorem No. 1.

The details of this fascinating computation may be found again in appendix A of a paper entitled 'An outline for a quantum golden field theory'.

I think Munroe hit something really cool. El Naschie did not realize it is one group. The only person who ever mentioned that E12 with a dimension 684 or 685 or 686 is a single exceptional Lie Group is Munroe but the connection to the other theories by El Naschie and others must provide a stimuli for further worthwhile research. Who said that the blogs on the internet are useless. I think they are very useful - not always but quite frequently.

Those interested in exceptional Lie groups may find an article which appeared a few weeks ago in Scientific American quite interesting. On the surface of it it is talking about fractal spacetime. Essentially this is the approach which was taken by Mohamed El Naschie to model spacetime using Cantor sets. This is very close to but not identical with L. Nottale's fractal spacetime. I wonder if anybody sees the connection like I see it.

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-self-organizing-quantum-universe .

It is extremely distressing to find that a Center of Excellence such as Spinoza Inst. in the University of Utrecht, Holland led by a Nobel laureate in physics, Gerrardus 't Hooft is essentially publishing the same paper in Scientific American http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-self-organizing-quantum-universe#comments

as well as Quantum and Classical Gravity in addition to Physics Review Letters which is completely based on the work of Laurent Nottale, Garnet Ord and Mohamed El Naschie's Cantorian spacetime without acknowledging the work of the three. Is that they way referred journals operate nowadays? In the age of globalization, is that the way to get to the top? You simply confiscate the work of children of lesser Gods? I sincerely hope that I am very wrong, otherwise..... no I will not say the word I was going to say.

M. Steffan

There are two really nice papers on Elsevierfs Science Direct. The first is by Ray Munroe The MSSM, E8, Hyperflavor E12 and E‡c.., Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, doi: 10.1016/j.chaos.2008.06.024. Ray seems to have discovered the symmetry group of E-infinity theory. This is not trivial. This man seems to be a first class theoretical physicist. The second is a highly entertaining paper on the difference between number theory and numerology in physics by L. Marek-Crnjac On the vital difference between number theoryc. , Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, doi: 10.1016/j.chaos.2008.07.039. I wonder what Lisi would think of these two papers.

Dear Rodney,

Thank you for the compliment. Yes, I'm also interested in Garrett's opinion and feedback. I like Lisi's E8, but I still think it is too small. I am trying to decipher the quasi-exceptional E12 and/ or El Naschie's transfinite E-Infinity into a presentation comparable to Lisi's E8. Thus far, I am bogged down in geometrical details like Klein's X7 and the 24-cell. Ironically, these are the sort of geometrical objects that El Naschie has been writing about for years. Hopefully, there will be more to come at a later date... For now, I have to prepare for Tropical Storm Fay.

Sincerely, Ray Munroe

Dear Ray,

I heard from a couple of my colleagues about your book. They are full of praise for it. What I do not understand if why you did not publish your work in Physics Review Letters or did you? I mean it is clear you are a first class, well trained physicist who grasps things very fast. You were able to comprehend Lisi's work and digest Mohamed El Naschie's voluminous work while others are still sitting incapable of making the next step. Take Garnet Ord for instance who is highly praised by El Naschie. He keeps publishing papers also in Physics Review but he did not move much since his 1984 paper. Laurent Nottale is different. He produces an enormous amount of work. He improves very slowly but unfortunately repeats the same old mistakes all over again. He is equating fractals with non-differentiability. This is a hair raising proposition for experts on fractals from Mandelbrot to Procaccia but you are really different. I have read a lot on the Scientific American site. The temperature of the discussion gets sometimes quite high but on the whole, it is quite scientific and to the point, similar to this site. Other blogs can be quite trivial and sometimes even disgusting. On a particular site belonging to someone who calls himself a conservative theoretical physicist, I found nothing but trivial and despicable slander against many people including Lisi. Any way I just wanted to tell you that your book should be published by a well known publisher so that those who see only the negative part in everything, do not equate you with vanity publishing. That would be a gross injustice to you and your work in my opinion.

Dear Brian,

Thank you for the compliment. I have been working on these ideas for years, and I wasn't sure if they were ready to publish or not. In 2005, I decided that I wanted to move forward with trying to publish. My prior publications were in Phys. Rev. D, so I tried that journal first. Their editorial response was "In general, Physical Review D does not publish theoretical speculations if they do not have rather substantial motivation or if they are based upon ad hoc assumptions. I regret to inform you that, in view of this, we cannot accept your manuscript for publication." Over the next two years, I also tried to publish in European Physical Journal C, and I resubmitted the paper a couple of times (at different times) to each journal. Finally, in 2007, I decided that we live in an internet age where any idea can be distributed through tools like Lulu.com and blog sites. I know that my ideas are radical (although they yield the Standard Model at low energies), and I chose a radical form of distribution. I want to be accepted by the more conservative, refereed journals, but they never made it clear to me "What to leave in? What to leave out?"

I don't understand everything that Lisi and El Naschie have written - we all seem to have different backgrounds and training. But I have seen similarities in our respective approaches, and that has allowed me to build on their ideas to a degree. Until I read Lisi's paper, I was trying to build a GUT/ TOE based on Special Unitary (such as SU(5), etc.) or Special Orthogonal (such as SO(10), etc.) groups, and I had ignored the Exceptional groups. I originally thought they were too limited. But Lisi's paper inspired me to suggest a new set of Quasi-Exceptional groups, and I am still developing that idea.

Lulu.com was a way to introduce my ideas as a book "New Approaches Towards a Grand Unified Theory". And that book is also available on Amazon.com and the usual online retailers. The danger of publishing non-refereed science is that some might consider it vanity publishing or pseudo-science. I appreciate that El Naschie has helped get two of my papers published in the Journal of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals. Both of those papers included some fractal research. But my training is in Theoretical Particle Physics, and I probably won't write about fractals in every paper.

Sincerely, Ray Munroe