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Previous Contests
Questioning the Foundations
Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?
May 24 - August 31, 2012
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, SubMeta, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
Is Reality Digital or Analog?
November 2010 - February 2011
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation and Scientific American
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What's Ultimately Possible in Physics?
May - October 2009
Contest Partners: Astrid and Bruce McWilliams
read/discuss • winners
The Nature of Time
August - December 2008
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FQXi FORUM
May 20, 2013
CATEGORY:
FQXi Essay Contest - Is Reality Digital or Analog?
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TOPIC: A Connectivity Theory of Space and Time by Honda Shing [refresh]
TOPIC: A Connectivity Theory of Space and Time by Honda Shing [refresh]
Essay Abstract
A nonlocal reality theory is proposed to address the locality paradox between quantum mechanics and special relativity. By defining extra connectivity of the space-time structure and a more relaxed requirement of causality, the theory provides a new perspective to nonlocal quantum phenomena. The extra connectivity of space-time also has an ironic implication – the apparent discreteness of particle trajectories. Is space-time continuous or discrete? Based on the theory, space-time can be much more continuous than the conventional 4D continuum view. Nevertheless, discreteness comes naturally out of this “hyper-continuity” of space-time.
Author Bio
Honda Shing received his PhD and MS degrees from the computer science department at Michigan State University. He was founder and CTO of InterVideo Inc. He is now a PhD student in the physics department of UC Berkeley.
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A nonlocal reality theory is proposed to address the locality paradox between quantum mechanics and special relativity. By defining extra connectivity of the space-time structure and a more relaxed requirement of causality, the theory provides a new perspective to nonlocal quantum phenomena. The extra connectivity of space-time also has an ironic implication – the apparent discreteness of particle trajectories. Is space-time continuous or discrete? Based on the theory, space-time can be much more continuous than the conventional 4D continuum view. Nevertheless, discreteness comes naturally out of this “hyper-continuity” of space-time.
Author Bio
Honda Shing received his PhD and MS degrees from the computer science department at Michigan State University. He was founder and CTO of InterVideo Inc. He is now a PhD student in the physics department of UC Berkeley.
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Hi,
A very nice essay. Thanks for sharing it. Your approach to non-locality makes plenty of sense to me. Have you given any thought to what kind of dynamics would allow the kind of spatial structure you're describing to emerge? If so, I'd be very interested to hear about it.
Alex
PS: Hoorah for having another Berkeley person in the contest.
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A very nice essay. Thanks for sharing it. Your approach to non-locality makes plenty of sense to me. Have you given any thought to what kind of dynamics would allow the kind of spatial structure you're describing to emerge? If so, I'd be very interested to hear about it.
Alex
PS: Hoorah for having another Berkeley person in the contest.
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Hi Alex,
Thanks for the encouragement. The paper presents the space-time structure as a proposal to the fundamental reality. Since it is "fundamental", the hope is to derive known physical phenomena and dynamics from it, rather than the other way around. I assume the highly connected structure to be intrinsic for the space-time, while its effect is hindered only in macroscopic view. We see 1D space as a geomatrical line, 2D space as a geomatrical plane, etc. only because of our macroscopic view point. Nonlocal quantum phenomena allow us to suspect that it may not be the case microscopically -- a line is not a line, a plane is not a plane etc. fundamentally.
It is great to know Berkeley folks in the contest. Wish you the best!
Honda
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Thanks for the encouragement. The paper presents the space-time structure as a proposal to the fundamental reality. Since it is "fundamental", the hope is to derive known physical phenomena and dynamics from it, rather than the other way around. I assume the highly connected structure to be intrinsic for the space-time, while its effect is hindered only in macroscopic view. We see 1D space as a geomatrical line, 2D space as a geomatrical plane, etc. only because of our macroscopic view point. Nonlocal quantum phenomena allow us to suspect that it may not be the case microscopically -- a line is not a line, a plane is not a plane etc. fundamentally.
It is great to know Berkeley folks in the contest. Wish you the best!
Honda
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Dear Honda
I enjoyed your essay. In my essay I took a different approach but in some way could be closely related with yours. For example I explained how a Quantum many world can arise from a simple structure (a partial order or a topological space) , what you call zero-distance connection in my context is the fact that the each point in the order determine a universe which structure depends on his relation with other points in the order and the structure of their respective universes. What you call weight is just the structure of the order in my context and your word line order in my context are just the different paths in the order. We don't need to developed a new mathematical model to describe such things the model already exists and is based on the semantics of a non-intuitionist logic this is the more interesting part. I invited you to read my essay I would like to Know your opinions.
J.Benavides
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I enjoyed your essay. In my essay I took a different approach but in some way could be closely related with yours. For example I explained how a Quantum many world can arise from a simple structure (a partial order or a topological space) , what you call zero-distance connection in my context is the fact that the each point in the order determine a universe which structure depends on his relation with other points in the order and the structure of their respective universes. What you call weight is just the structure of the order in my context and your word line order in my context are just the different paths in the order. We don't need to developed a new mathematical model to describe such things the model already exists and is based on the semantics of a non-intuitionist logic this is the more interesting part. I invited you to read my essay I would like to Know your opinions.
J.Benavides
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Dear John,
Thanks for sharing the thoughts! I haven't had time to read your essay yet. It sounds very interesting. I promise I will spend time on it and let you know what I think.
Honda
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Thanks for sharing the thoughts! I haven't had time to read your essay yet. It sounds very interesting. I promise I will spend time on it and let you know what I think.
Honda
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Dear Dr. Shing,
I enjoyed reading your essay, as it has something in common with my own.
Whereas you postulate: "The extra connectivity of space-time also has an ironic implication - the apparent discreteness of particle trajectories." In my essay I demonstrate the discreteness od particle trajectories by deriving a generalisation of the energy of a photon ('the Light'). Further, 'the Light' implies space-time. The question is, then, does 'the Light' imply "The extra connectivity of space-time"?
All the best,
Robert
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I enjoyed reading your essay, as it has something in common with my own.
Whereas you postulate: "The extra connectivity of space-time also has an ironic implication - the apparent discreteness of particle trajectories." In my essay I demonstrate the discreteness od particle trajectories by deriving a generalisation of the energy of a photon ('the Light'). Further, 'the Light' implies space-time. The question is, then, does 'the Light' imply "The extra connectivity of space-time"?
All the best,
Robert
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Thank you for the feedback. I will think about the comments and the question you stated.
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Dear Honda Shing,
your essay is nicely readable.
1) You mention that
"...this theory, instead of seeking non-locality for particles or waves, embeds any nonlocal factor completely in the space-time structure."
This refers to your idea of having links, with probabilistic weights, connecting any spacetime event with any other spacetime event: high weights for short links, and low weights for long links. And you count on the long links for justifying non local effects, or actions at distance.
I think you can find this idea also in Wolfram, in his NKS book (p. 544, the 'thread' idea). Maybe some comparison between the two is fruitful.
2) You write:
Postulate 2 (Causality): A causal relationship is defined by 'world line order', rather than time order.
I notice that you still draw worldlines (as sets of points) embedded in a manifold, with dimensions x and t, as usual. But I suppose you do not want to inherit from that manifold the Lorentz metric, inducing causality and associated light cones (which would be violated by, say event subsequence 4-5 in Figure 6). What type of overall structure do you envisage, then, for a huge (and realistic) collection of world lines? How do you put them all together?
You seem to take world lines as a primitive concept: they are the thing that define causality. I personally find the idea of causal sets (discrete models of space-time) as more attractive. Causality among events is defined by the links of a causal set - as big as you want. Then you can focus on the various paths in it, that correspond to your world lines: the latter derive from the causal set structure, rather than being taken as primitive, and you do not have to put them together yourself. Also, in a causal set you immediately see the potential interactions among world lines, since nodes may well have more than one incoming and outgoing causal links.
In conclusion, I suspect that you might like the Causal Set idea, as investigated by Bombelli, Sorkin, Rideout, Reid, Henson and others. If so, you may also like my essay! Cheers
Tommaso
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your essay is nicely readable.
1) You mention that
"...this theory, instead of seeking non-locality for particles or waves, embeds any nonlocal factor completely in the space-time structure."
This refers to your idea of having links, with probabilistic weights, connecting any spacetime event with any other spacetime event: high weights for short links, and low weights for long links. And you count on the long links for justifying non local effects, or actions at distance.
I think you can find this idea also in Wolfram, in his NKS book (p. 544, the 'thread' idea). Maybe some comparison between the two is fruitful.
2) You write:
Postulate 2 (Causality): A causal relationship is defined by 'world line order', rather than time order.
I notice that you still draw worldlines (as sets of points) embedded in a manifold, with dimensions x and t, as usual. But I suppose you do not want to inherit from that manifold the Lorentz metric, inducing causality and associated light cones (which would be violated by, say event subsequence 4-5 in Figure 6). What type of overall structure do you envisage, then, for a huge (and realistic) collection of world lines? How do you put them all together?
You seem to take world lines as a primitive concept: they are the thing that define causality. I personally find the idea of causal sets (discrete models of space-time) as more attractive. Causality among events is defined by the links of a causal set - as big as you want. Then you can focus on the various paths in it, that correspond to your world lines: the latter derive from the causal set structure, rather than being taken as primitive, and you do not have to put them together yourself. Also, in a causal set you immediately see the potential interactions among world lines, since nodes may well have more than one incoming and outgoing causal links.
In conclusion, I suspect that you might like the Causal Set idea, as investigated by Bombelli, Sorkin, Rideout, Reid, Henson and others. If so, you may also like my essay! Cheers
Tommaso
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Thank you for the comments and for the information. I am not familiar enough with the concept of causal set at this time. I will explore more of it and also the papers by the authors you mentioned.
Unlike the causal set concept, the theory I propose is based on a continuous model. It does not throw away the 4+1 space-time manifold with Lorentz metric. It merely defines new connectivity over the manifold such that world lines take a brand new form, i.e. all routes are possible, even discrete ones.
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Unlike the causal set concept, the theory I propose is based on a continuous model. It does not throw away the 4+1 space-time manifold with Lorentz metric. It merely defines new connectivity over the manifold such that world lines take a brand new form, i.e. all routes are possible, even discrete ones.
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Honda,
I tend to grab the quote: "Particles propagate as waves but are detected as particles."
With my limited understanding of higher math, I tend to see models as imperfectly representing reality. Overall, I see an "Endless Universe" by Paul Steinhardt, and see the Planck-size world as a reality we try to simulate and ascribe characteristics of our models to but cannot truly know it, only grabbing views that fit our prejudices.
None of us can prove our views but you have a good approach.
Jim Hoover
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I tend to grab the quote: "Particles propagate as waves but are detected as particles."
With my limited understanding of higher math, I tend to see models as imperfectly representing reality. Overall, I see an "Endless Universe" by Paul Steinhardt, and see the Planck-size world as a reality we try to simulate and ascribe characteristics of our models to but cannot truly know it, only grabbing views that fit our prejudices.
None of us can prove our views but you have a good approach.
Jim Hoover
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Thanks for your comments. Indeed, whatever theories and equations we can derive, are just models to describe the reality. While we may have our subjective preferences and prejudices about a certain model, it is also possible to come up with objective experiments or new observations to prove or disprove its correctness. Hopefully, in the process, models can be refined to come closer to the reality, and so will our understanding about the universe.
Honda
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Honda
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Thank you for the essay Honda . I LOVE the graphs! Your written style and voice is so fluid, it was easy for me to follow your premises and conclusion.
May I suggest something? Since the universe is composed of:
Dark energy = 70%
Dark matter = 25%
Matter = 5%
In order to create a system that is both discrete and infinite, you would need to RECYCLE matter into dark matter, like a biosphere, or in science speak, a mirror reflection or intrinsic parity . Hence, in order to understand dark energy and dark matter, our FUNDAMENTAL understanding of the universe must be changed. For example, in math, we consider the square root of a negative number to be an "imaginary" number. (see link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_number) Our problem is that the natural world actually exists in "imaginary" numbers.
Any theroem therefore must recognize imaginary numbers because 95% of the universe is composed of imaginary numbers.
Hence, any wavefunctions of certain types of particles have to be multiplied by −1, in addition to being mirror-reverse. What this means is that those particles must have negative or odd parity (P = −1, or alternatively P = –).
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May I suggest something? Since the universe is composed of:
Dark energy = 70%
Dark matter = 25%
Matter = 5%
In order to create a system that is both discrete and infinite, you would need to RECYCLE matter into dark matter, like a biosphere, or in science speak, a mirror reflection or intrinsic parity . Hence, in order to understand dark energy and dark matter, our FUNDAMENTAL understanding of the universe must be changed. For example, in math, we consider the square root of a negative number to be an "imaginary" number. (see link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_number) Our problem is that the natural world actually exists in "imaginary" numbers.
Any theroem therefore must recognize imaginary numbers because 95% of the universe is composed of imaginary numbers.
Hence, any wavefunctions of certain types of particles have to be multiplied by −1, in addition to being mirror-reverse. What this means is that those particles must have negative or odd parity (P = −1, or alternatively P = –).
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Thanks for the encouragement and for the suggestion! As you suggested, it is important to address dark matter and dark energy for any theories that try to describe the reality. After all, they do represent the major part of the universe. They are something for me to think about in further development of the theory.
Honda
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Honda
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Dear Honda,
Interesting essay, but I am afraid it contains a fatal flow: your model can develop closed causal loops. Causal Set theory is in the same kind of vein as your approach, but they specifically exclude closed causal loops in their starting axioms. I think that if you would refine your approach with minimal changes to answer physical objections, in the end you would recover the causal set theory.
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Interesting essay, but I am afraid it contains a fatal flow: your model can develop closed causal loops. Causal Set theory is in the same kind of vein as your approach, but they specifically exclude closed causal loops in their starting axioms. I think that if you would refine your approach with minimal changes to answer physical objections, in the end you would recover the causal set theory.
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Thanks for the comment. The model does implies the existance of causal loops (time loops), as indicated in Section 2.2 of the essay. However, the last two paragraphs of the same section also explains why this is not a problem, although I could not put in more details due to the page limitation.
As explained in the essay, in order to statisfy the requirement of a STATIC global spave-time diagram, only casaully consistent loops can exist. This means that inconsistent loops, such as grandfather paradox or Polchinski's paradox, cannot exist. One reference about this is the Novikov self-consistency principle.
Although there are arguments against Novikov's principle, they don't seem to apply in our case. First, the spacelike causal relationships are the result of the defined space-time structure, rather than the curvatures caused by GR effects. Second, spacelike connections are in planck scale, general QM rules may not directly apply.
Honda
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As explained in the essay, in order to statisfy the requirement of a STATIC global spave-time diagram, only casaully consistent loops can exist. This means that inconsistent loops, such as grandfather paradox or Polchinski's paradox, cannot exist. One reference about this is the Novikov self-consistency principle.
Although there are arguments against Novikov's principle, they don't seem to apply in our case. First, the spacelike causal relationships are the result of the defined space-time structure, rather than the curvatures caused by GR effects. Second, spacelike connections are in planck scale, general QM rules may not directly apply.
Honda
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Dear Honda,
I like your essay because it is very readable and it tackles the hard problems with quantum mechanics: the dual slit and entanglement.
You may be interest in the essays:
1. Continuous and Discrete Aspects of Nature by Vesselin Petkov
2. Making Waves by Don Limuti
because they go after the same target with some different starting points.
Best of luck,
Don Limuti
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I like your essay because it is very readable and it tackles the hard problems with quantum mechanics: the dual slit and entanglement.
You may be interest in the essays:
1. Continuous and Discrete Aspects of Nature by Vesselin Petkov
2. Making Waves by Don Limuti
because they go after the same target with some different starting points.
Best of luck,
Don Limuti
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Thank you very much for your encouragement and for the information! I will take a look at the essays you mentioned.
Honda
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Honda
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Dear Sir,
Quantum theory is like Pioneer Anomaly. It started with a small anomaly between the postulated and actual position of Pioneer 11 that has grown to more than 400,000 kilometers now challenging the existing theories of gravitation and giving rise to alternate theories like MOND, none of which are successful in giving a complete explanation of the phenomenon. The different...
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Quantum theory is like Pioneer Anomaly. It started with a small anomaly between the postulated and actual position of Pioneer 11 that has grown to more than 400,000 kilometers now challenging the existing theories of gravitation and giving rise to alternate theories like MOND, none of which are successful in giving a complete explanation of the phenomenon. The different...
view entire post
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Dear Honda,
Wisdom is more important than imagination is more important than knowledge for all the we know is just an imagination chosen wisely.
Please read Theory of everything at your convenience posted by me in this contest.
Who am I? I am virtual reality, I is absolute truth.
Love,
Sridattadev.
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Wisdom is more important than imagination is more important than knowledge for all the we know is just an imagination chosen wisely.
Please read Theory of everything at your convenience posted by me in this contest.
Who am I? I am virtual reality, I is absolute truth.
Love,
Sridattadev.
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Dear Shing,
I was so happy to read your essay since it is very much related to my own theory:
http://www.qsa.netne.net
I think all the ideas of John Benavides , Tommaso Bolognesi ,D'Ariano, Zenil and few other are very much related. my website has not been updated, but here is the abstract of my upcoming paper.
In this letter I derive the laws of nature from the hypothesis that "Nature is made out of mathematics, literally". I present a method to design a universe using simple rules which turns out to have the properties similar to our reality. Particles are modeled as end of lines, one end is confined to a small region and the other goes to allover the universe. The Coulomb force (when lines cross) and gravity(when lines meet) appear naturally and they are two aspects of one process involving the interaction of these lines, and then by calculating the expectation values for positions. I am able to calculate what appears to be the Fine-structure constant. Gravity also appears with surprising results, it shows that gravity becomes repulsive when distance is great or when distance is very small. At this time I have only done 1D full simulation with interaction and 2D and 3D and indeed nD without interaction. I am working on 2D interaction now and already showing very surprising results. I can see a hint of the strong and the electroweak force. Time and space could be looked upon as derived quantities. I show that not only nature is discrete but also mathematics, since dx can only approach zero but it never is zero. In my model the ultimate irony is that our reality came about because there is only one way to design a dynamic universe and that only one allowed our existence. I guess you could say fortunately or unfortunately depending on how one's life unfolded.
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I was so happy to read your essay since it is very much related to my own theory:
http://www.qsa.netne.net
I think all the ideas of John Benavides , Tommaso Bolognesi ,D'Ariano, Zenil and few other are very much related. my website has not been updated, but here is the abstract of my upcoming paper.
In this letter I derive the laws of nature from the hypothesis that "Nature is made out of mathematics, literally". I present a method to design a universe using simple rules which turns out to have the properties similar to our reality. Particles are modeled as end of lines, one end is confined to a small region and the other goes to allover the universe. The Coulomb force (when lines cross) and gravity(when lines meet) appear naturally and they are two aspects of one process involving the interaction of these lines, and then by calculating the expectation values for positions. I am able to calculate what appears to be the Fine-structure constant. Gravity also appears with surprising results, it shows that gravity becomes repulsive when distance is great or when distance is very small. At this time I have only done 1D full simulation with interaction and 2D and 3D and indeed nD without interaction. I am working on 2D interaction now and already showing very surprising results. I can see a hint of the strong and the electroweak force. Time and space could be looked upon as derived quantities. I show that not only nature is discrete but also mathematics, since dx can only approach zero but it never is zero. In my model the ultimate irony is that our reality came about because there is only one way to design a dynamic universe and that only one allowed our existence. I guess you could say fortunately or unfortunately depending on how one's life unfolded.
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Dear Honda,
Thank you for your comments at my essay's page. I have downloaded your essay and will read it.
Vesselin Petkov
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Thank you for your comments at my essay's page. I have downloaded your essay and will read it.
Vesselin Petkov
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Dear Honda,
Thanks for sharing. You essay is very interesting. We need someone like you to help discover the truth of the universe. We are really proud of you.
Your friend,
Li-Jen Chang
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Thanks for sharing. You essay is very interesting. We need someone like you to help discover the truth of the universe. We are really proud of you.
Your friend,
Li-Jen Chang
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Dear Li-Jen,
Thanks for the encouragement! By the way, are you the Li-Jen Chang whom I knew from MSU?
Honda
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Thanks for the encouragement! By the way, are you the Li-Jen Chang whom I knew from MSU?
Honda
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