James Michel ’68
January 17, 2026
After a career in medicine following my chemistry and biochemistry training at Harvey Mudd, I鈥檝e been working at the intersection of human learning, artificial intelligence, and systems thinking.
In recent years, my focus has been on clarifying why learning from experience poses fundamentally different challenges than training-based optimization鈥攂oth in human systems (medicine, education) and in emerging AI systems that must adapt over time.
This work has involved writing and teaching around the structural limits of time-indexed learning models and exploring what must change when experience, delayed consequence, and long-horizon adaptation become central.
I continue to publish and develop educational materials aimed at helping students and practitioners understand how learning actually works once systems鈥攈uman or artificial鈥攐perate under real-world conditions.
June 25, 2025
As part of my post-Mudd journey, I鈥檝e recently launched a new Substack essay鈥斺淲hy Invent Another Unicorn Force?鈥濃攅xploring how fourth-dimensional physics reframes the so-called fifth force using a theory I developed called Evolving Compressive Gravity. The piece builds on concepts from my published science series, The Cosmic Chronicles Tetralogy, and represents the public-facing expression of my lifelong work as a physician and science educator.
Evolving Compressive Gravity Theory (ECGT) reinterprets gravity not as attraction between masses but as the result of omnidirectional compression from a fourth spatial dimension. This shift offers new explanations for galactic structure, dark matter anomalies, and the quantization of gravity鈥攍inking astrophysics with quantum biology and consciousness studies. ECGT was introduced in Gravitational Renaissance, the first Cosmic Chronicles monograph, and continues to evolve in conversation with experimental findings.
I鈥檝e included the link and author info below. Many thanks for all you and your team do to connect and celebrate the Mudd community.
Warm regards,
Dr. James W. Michel 鈥78
Founder, Cosmic Chronicles Creative
Author of the Cosmic Chronicles Tetralogy
ORCID: 0009-0009-5566-1117
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