Exchange with D. Lloyd Jarmusch

Email exchange, also archived to Syn-L, one typo fixed.
Return to An Introduction to Quadrays


Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 14:11:30 -1000
From: "D. Lloyd Jarmusch" 
To: pdx4d@teleport.com
Subject: Quadrays and Nuclear Fusion

I was astonished to find your web pages on the quadray system.  A month
or so ago I had no idea that anyone besides myself had ever conceived
the system, much less developed it to the point you have.  Your work is
brilliant and well presented, and you are to be congratulated for your
contributions to the advancement of knowledge.

I developed the system myself, independently, back in 1981, and at the
time I also called it the quadray system (lately I had been calling it a
quadraxial Cartesian system, I notice you call it a NeoCartesian
system).  I was somewhat surprised that our systems are so similar,
right down to the notation for coordinates and the fact that every point
has a unique address where at least one of the coordinates is zero and
all the others are non negative.  In retrospect I should not have been
surprised since the system is so natural that it was inevitable that
others would come up with it as well.

I though you might be interested to know that when I conceived the
system myself in 1981 I immediately thought that, since it seemed more
"natural" than the rectangular Cartesian system it would be useful in
solving some of the problems that physics is struggling to solve using
the rectangular system.  The first problem of physics I thought to
address was the confinement of plasmas in nuclear fusion.  It seemed to
me that the quadray system revealed a fundamental aspect of nature, that
is that space is what I call "four-directional".  It seemed to me that
the problem of magnetic confinement might be better addressed if
physicists were to concentrate on confining the movement of the plasma
in any of the four directions, thus forming the plasma into a
tetrahedral shape. The problem of magnetic confinement is very complex,
and I was merely a freshman studying philosophy, and none of the
physicists I talked to were interested in my new coordinate system, so I
gave up the problem after a short while.  Suddenly in 1993 it occurred
to me that fusion might be achieved by colliding beams of hydrogen from
the four directions indicated by the quadray system.  I investigated the
problem of fusion again and became convinced that my design for a
nuclear fusion reactor had merit and ought to be developed further.  I
set out to patent and fund the reactor, and after several years of
effort I am finally getting the patent.  I just paid the issue fee for
the patent last week.

I have been trying to develop support for the concept that space is
four-directional, especially in the usenet newsgroup
sci.physics.fusion.    A reader of the group emailed me a paper by you
about the quadray system.  I was very pleased to read the paper and to
visit your excellent webpages on the subject. I cannot express to you
how happy I am that you have developed the system so well, and have
presented it in such a beautiful and well thought-out format.  I will
refer to your webpages often.  Thank you so much for your surperb work.

Aloha,

D. Lloyd Jarmusch
P.O. Box 677
Kilauea, Hawaii 96754

=======

Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 17:45:14 -0700
To: "D. Lloyd Jarmusch" 
From: Kirby Urner 
Subject: Re: Quadrays and Nuclear Fusion

Thanks for your email re quadrays sir!

The essential ideas came to my awareness thanks to David Chako, 
who shared them on Synergetics-L, a listserv re Bucky Fuller's
philosophical geometry which I administer.  In the 'For further 
reading' section of http://www.teleport.com/~pdx4d/quadrays.html 
you'll find a hyperlink to a verbatim excerpt from the Syn-L 
archives showing where David first introduced his idea (along
with some of our initial feedback) ["Genesis on Synergetics-L"].

Josef Hasslberger was likewise entertaining similar notions, 
minus a formalized notation, and you'll find my link to his
web-page on the concept at quadcolors.html (a collaborative 
work based on his ideas regarding quadrays and color).  He
calls them Tetra Space Co-ordinates.

My contribution to the literature involved coming up with a
distance formula and formalizing an XYZ<->quadrays conversion
convention (quadxyz.html) that makes this apparatus especially 
useful for converging with Fuller's synergetics (the main 
focus of my website, 'Synergetics on the Web').  I also 
developed source code for outputting polyhedra saved in 
quadray coordinates, to Povray for ray tracing (some of the 
renderings need to be redone -- aspect ratio off, giving a 
slightly 'quashed' appearance).  FoxPro Advisor, a computer 
magazine, has recently solicited an article on my use of VFP 
to do this kind of geometry work (a novel usage from the point
of view of your average bread and butter xBase programmer).

I give you all this by way of background and orientation 
vis-a-vis my viewpoint.  That you came up with this same 
apparatus independently in 1981 (when I was just beginning
to get interested in Fuller) is very interesting to me and 
no doubt your long term consideration of this system in 
tandem with physics challenges will open up some new vistas,
at least from our point of view on Synergetics-L.

I should also mention that David Chako has called them 
'tetrays' and further elaborated the system, using the 
equivalence of all (n,n,n,n) from a spatial point of view 
to introduce a temporal index.  His coordinate system 
increases with frequency through time and vectors come 
out as probability calculations (ala Pascal's triangle/
tetrahedron) relating to pathways from the origin to a 
terminus.  But I leave the details for him to explain -- 
I don't pretend competence vis-a-vis his 'tetray' apparatus.  

As you note, I'm basically using quadrays as a close 
analog of XYZ, call it NeoCartesian for this reason, and 
use it in philosophical circles to do Wittgensteinian-type 
investigations of low-level math concepts e.g. "dimension" 
and "linear independence" (quadphil.html).

Aloha,

Kirby

PS:  with your permission, I'd like to forward your email,
and this response, to Synergetics-L for sharing/archiving.
I'd also like to save this exchange from a hyperlink at
quadrays.html to better include your trajectory and give 
us a jumping-off point for future developments (both colla-
borative and solo).  Thanks again for getting in touch. 
As I'm sure you know, it's not unusual for ideas to occur 
to lots of folks, unbeknownst to one another -- usually 
indicative of something in the wind (zeitgeist and all that).

===

Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 16:06:10 -1000
From: "D. Lloyd Jarmusch" 
To: Kirby Urner 
Subject: Re: Quadrays and Nuclear Fusion



Kirby Urner wrote:

> Thanks for your email re quadrays sir!

You are more than welcome. Thank you for the additional info in your
last email.

>
>
> ... with your permission, I'd like to forward your email,
> and this response, to Synergetics-L for sharing/archiving.
> I'd also like to save this exchange from a hyperlink at
> quadrays.html to better include your trajectory and give
> us a jumping-off point for future developments

I would be flattered to have you forward my email or post it where ever
you like.

Thank you and aloha for now,

D. Lloyd Jarmusch

=====
Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 22:04:05 -0700
To: "D. Lloyd Jarmusch" 
From: Kirby Urner 
Subject: Re: Quadrays and Nuclear Fusion
Cc: synergetics-l@teleport.com


>I would be flattered to have you forward my email or post it where ever
>you like.
>
>Thank you and aloha for now,
>
>D. Lloyd Jarmusch
>

Our email exchange (sharing genesis of quadrays in our respective 
scenarios) is now linked from the 'For Further Reading' section of 
'An Introduction to Quadrays' (www.teleport.com/~pdx4d/quadrays.html).

Lets keep in touch.  Your intuition that "space is four-directional" 
is likewise what Bucky Fuller was communicating when saying space is 
"four dimensional" (cite www.teleport.com/~pdx4d/terms.html#4d).

Ciao,

Kirby
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