James Michel ’68

January 17, 2026
Image of James Michel '68
James W. Michel ’68 Chemistry / Biochemistry. After a career in medicine, now focused on writing and education exploring how learning changes once experience and long-term consequence matter.

After a career in medicine following my chemistry and biochemistry training at Harvey Mudd, I’ve 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—both 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—human or artificial—operate under real-world conditions.

June 25, 2025

As part of my post-Mudd journey, I’ve recently launched a new Substack essay—“Why Invent Another Unicorn Force?”—exploring 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—linking 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’ve 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 ’78
Founder, Cosmic Chronicles Creative
Author of the Cosmic Chronicles Tetralogy
ORCID: 0009-0009-5566-1117
🌐 https://open.substack.com/pub/doctorjamesmichel/p/why-invent-another-unicorn-force

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