'Introduction' in Po8 (index

Pieces of Eight (“Po8”) is the working title of a project to develop a fundamental representation for physics.

Three successively-developed papers have been presented, the latest being “Algebra of a Three-fold Symmetry for Fundamental Physics” for PIRT XI, September 2008. The author continues to develop this work, with a core paper and several specialised expansions.

Look at the foundations to find deep symmetries that may apply to more of physics at a higher level;
Derive emergent phenonema from a deep and complete foundational description, with sound traceability and fewer assumptions;
Make new discoveries.

By looking at the foundations of physics, we believe that important discoveries can be made - more so than by looking at the peripheral leading edge of specialised research. If we make new insights at the foundational core of physics, many higher-level concepts in physics should emerge naturally from the foundations, with minimal complication or intervention. At this low level, fundamental symmetries will lead to new discoveries because the symmetries run deep, and may be applied to more than one expression of physicality: a newly-discovered method may be applied to the same fundamental elements as they occur in another phenomena.

For the reader, this approach means taking a step back to appreciate physics from a different perspective. Rather than looking for complicated ways of describing the attributes of matter directly from experimental observation, we dig deeper to try to understand how matter exists, and to describe previously fundamental assumptions in terms of simpler and more basic 'laws'. Although these ideas are originated as thought experiments, this approach does not deny the experimental scientific method, because we aim to converge with evidence in our proofs.

Our main objective is to find a good foundational basis for physics, and reconcile it with existing knowledge. Of course, our other aim is to make new discoveries, and provide others with the means to make discoveries.

Conventional assumptions are redefined, but we are by no means arrogant in our approach: we find that the existing body of accepted work is still correct, and note how some of it can be described with fewer assumptions. In fact, many seemingly contradictory approaches may all be correct, their differences are just a matter of interpretation and perspective. By investigating at a more fundamental level, we may see how, and why, this is the case. We do not aim to challenge the established legacy of physics; we only wish to explore and understand it in simpler terms, and derive more from a deep and complete foundational description.

We've found a simple 'unification' of waves and particles, and an implicit model that defines fermions as being self-quantizing snapshots of bosonic waves. We have proposed a foundational sub-physical abstraction for the alegbra of waves and interactions, and used a four-part approach (instead of the usual three) to define fermionic matter networks, from which all physical phenomena (examined so far) can be described in terms of this model. The approach is elegant: it is simple, has wide coverage, and work continues to find qualitative results that can be reconciled with currently accepted theory. Progress is inevitably slow, as it demands detailed knowledge in many specialised disciplines of physics, so our priorities now are to specialize to provide proofs, and to accordingly refine the core work.

As well as the development papers, we are populating this site with encyclopedic articles to describe individual concepts and how they relate to other ideas. There are also some blog-like entries for any informal material that does not fit into the regular body of work.