Archimedes Plutonium

Archimedes Plutonium (born July 5, 1950), also known as Ludwig Plutonium, wrote extensively about science and mathematics on Usenet. In 1990 he became convinced that the universe could be thought of as an atom of plutonium, and changed his name to reflect this idea. He is notable for his offbeat ideas about Plutonium Atom totality, physical constants, and nonstandard models of infinite arithmetic. <ref> Joseph C. Scott. "Sometime-scientist Plutonium says science is 'gobbledygook'", The Dartmouth, September 25, 1997.</ref> <ref>Jennifer Kahn. "Notes from Another Universe", Discover, April 2002.</ref>

Archimedes Plutonium, in his Usenet posts, was the first to describe the process of biasing search-engine results by planting references, and coined the phrase search-engine bombing to describe it. This later became well-known as google bombing<ref>http://www.ifergan.org/google-bombing.html </ref> <ref>Law and Order on Net and Web (September 17, 1997)</ref>.

Biographical Sketch

Plutonium was born under the name Ludwig Poehlmann in Arzberg, Germany. His family moved to the United States and settled near Cincinnati, Ohio, where Plutonium was adopted into the Hansen family and brought up under the name Ludwig Hansen. Under the names Ludwig Von Ludvig, then Ludwig Plutonium, he began posting to Usenet in 1993. His prolific posts quickly made him a well known usenet figure.

Plutonium was long observed on the campus of Dartmouth College, where he rode around on a bicycle and wore an orange hunting hat and a homemade cape decorated with atomic symbols in Magic Marker. Students frequently saw him using the computer cluster in the basement of the Kiewit Computation Centre, and he regularly published full-page advertisements of his claims in the student newspaper, The Dartmouth.

Plutonium worked as a "potwasher" (he preferred this term over "dishwasher" because it had the same starting letter and number of letters as plutonium) at the Hanover Inn, which the college owns. When asked on Usenet how this observed job jibed with his claims of wealth, Plutonium explained that he only took the job in order to get Internet access. In 1999 Plutonium posted various complaints about the management of Dartmouth, calling for a strike by workers there and suggesting various conspiracy theories concerning college administrators. Plutonium lost his job at Dartmouth about August of 1999.

After making what he termed "science odyssey tours" of the United States and Europe, Plutonium then moved to rural Meckling, South Dakota, where he resumed his Usenet posting, saying he now lives on a "homestead" apparently consisting of a house, two Airstream trailers, and a grove of various sorts of trees.

Plutonium was questioned by New Hampshire police during an investigation of a famous case. The crime was completely solved a short time later and he was not involved in any way, but because of his eccentricity, he was a prominent character in the reports. <ref>Eric Francis, The Dartmouth Murders. St. Martin's True Crime, pp. 87–93.</ref> <ref>(June 30, 2002) "Many false clues in officials' hunt for Zantop killers". Boston Globe. </ref>

Writing

Plutonium is the author of tens of thousands of unique postings to dozens of newsgroups.

Plutonium Atom Totality

Plutonium Atom totality is a metaphysical idea that the universe should somehow be thought of as a gigantic atom of the element plutonium, Pu 231. It is not believed by most scientists that the universe considered as a whole is any type of atom, let alone an atom of plutonium. The cosmic atom, often written ATOM, is a manifestation of god, or the totality of all things. It is attributed with some divine properties, although the physical universe in Plutonium philosophy only obeys natural laws and does not include supernatural phenomenon.<ref> http://www.iw.net/~a_plutonium/ </ref>

Adic Integers

An integer in Plutonium's philosophical view includes objects which have a decimal expansion which never ends. Just as in standard mathematics the real number 1/3 can be represented as:

<math> {1\over 3} = 0.33333... </math>

the infinite integer whose decimal expansion consists solely of 3s is an integer in Plutonium's arithmetic.

<math> x= ...33333 \,</math>

This is the back-view of an integer, and this type of number is like a p-adic integer, but it is very different because it is not considered as a convergent sequence, but as a philosophically primitive element of the mathematical universe, an integer. Addition and multiplication of Plutonium's integers in this, the back-view, is defined by a digit-by digit procedure. He does not admit bi-infinite sequences, sequences which are infinite both in front of and behind the decimal point.

The front-view of an infinite integer is the part "in front" of an infinite list of of digits. It is a second perspective on the infinite integer, looked at starting with the leading digits, and going down. The front view of the number ...3333 might be 333..., in which case Plutonium would write it as:

<math> x = 333...333 \,</math>

combining both front and back view, or the front view might be another pattern altogether:

<math> x = 111...333 \,</math>

To multiply front-view and backview together, one multiplies finite approximations until the pattern becomes clear. For example, to multiply

<math> 111...333 * 888...444 \,</math>

you should multiply the numbers

<math> 1133 * 8844 \,</math>

<math> 111333 * 888444 \,</math>

<math> 11113333 * 88884444 \,</math>

going on until the repeating pattern front and back becomes obvious. For this example, the front-view can be found by multiplying the real numbers

<math> .111... * .888... = 1/9 * 8/9 = 8/81 = 987654320987654320.... \,</math>

While the back-view is

<math> ...4444 * ...3333 = ...1851851852 \,</math>

So that the answer is

<math> 111...333 * 888...444 = 987654320987654320...1851851852 \,</math>

It is a theorem of Peano Arithmetic that there do not exist integers x,y,z with:

<math> x^3 + y^3 = z^3 \,</math>

but Plutonium believes that this is not a property of adic-integers. So he claims that Fermat's last theorem is false <ref>this is the counterpart to well-known standard fact that there are counterexamples to Fermat's Last Theorem in any p-adic base</ref>.

Plutonium often states that the set of all integers is uncountable, which in standard mathematical language is an oxymoron. By this statement he usually means that the set of all adic integers cannot be ordered into a list in the usual way. His proof is to apply Cantor's diagonal argument to the Adic integers. He also sometimes states that there is a direct one-to-one map from the real numbers to the integers, which consists of taking all the digits behind the decimal point and putting them in front.

In particular, his real numbers have a front view and a back view too. The closest one can come to the number 1/3 in his system is:

<math>1/3 \approx 0.3333...3333 \,</math>

or

<math>1/3 \approx 0.3333....3334 \,</math>

but neither of these is exactly equal to 1/3, each differs by an infinitesimal residual. So Plutonium does not admit 1/3 as a real number.<ref> http://www.iw.net/~a_plutonium/, for further information, see http://mathforum.org/kb/forum.jspa?forumID=13 , Archimedes Plutonium , article: 10/16/07 11 #104 In fact the definition of Reals as *all possible digit arrangements* bars or precludes Cantor ever applying a diagonal method ; new textbook: "Mathematical-Physics (p-adic primer) for students of age 6 onwards" </ref> <ref>http://www.iw.net/~a_plutonium/ , see also http://forum.lowcarber.org/archive/index.php/t-80681.html</ref>

Other Writing

Plutonium has questioned narratives about Jesus, and formulated the idea that humans evolved as apes that could throw stones at one another. He is the author of countless other ideas and speculations, most of which claim to displace currently accepted mathematical and scientific theories, and none of which are accepted by mainstream science.

Quotes

• "The whole entire Universe is just one big atom where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies."
• "God is Science, and Science is god."
• "God is this one big atom that comprises all the Universe, much like what Spinoza discovered some centuries past, called pantheism. Where we are a tiny part of God itself. And where there is a heaven and hell in part of the atom structure. And where we will be judged by God when we die and our photon and neutrino souls will reincarnate once again in a future life somewhere in the Cosmos."
• "The world's finest Bibles are current physics textbooks or biology or chemistry textbooks such as the Feynman Lectures on Physics."
• "When you have a foggy notion of what you are working with, it is impossible to prove much about them."