Physical vs Mathematical Rigour

OFT Alpha of One Field Theory ("Electromagnetism Is All You Need") proposes that the apparent complexity of fundamental physics emerges from a single electromagnetic field in a polarisable vacuum. OFT is a drop-in replacement for the entire Standard Model of particle physics and General Relativity, and in the truest sense of the word a Grand Unified Theory — unifying physics itself, not merely mathematical symmetry groups.

The series proceeds from four givens — not assumptions, but acknowledgements of what exists before any theory begins:

1. Three dimensions of space and one dimension of time exist — and are not equivalent.
2. Causation propagates at finite speed — entailed by the first.
3. The vacuum is polarisable — empirical fact.
4. Matter exists with specific, reproducible, measured properties — empirical clues to underlying structure.

The first three givens are sufficient for the wave sector: Papers 1–3 derive the phenomena attributed to quantum mechanics, special relativity, and general relativity. The fourth gives enters in Paper 4, where the measured properties of the electron — charge, spin-½, mass, magnetic moment — are treated not as inscrutable quantum numbers but as physical clues to topological structure.

OFT distinguishes between two sectors with fundamentally different ontologies. In the wave sector (conventionally "bosons"), no particles exist: light is purely wave-like, and discrete detection events arise from wave-matter interaction. In the monopolon sector (conventionally "fermions"), particles are real: electrons, quarks, and other matter particles are stable topological solitons. The photon is a fiction; the electron is not.

This asymmetry resolves wave-particle duality by recognising that "wave" and "particle" describe different sectors of physics, not complementary aspects of the same entities.

Part 1 takes the form of an informal essay arguing that modern physics has inverted the proper relationship between mathematics and physical reality. A pattern of unmotivated mathematical choices runs through 20th century physics: Minkowski's abandonment of imaginary time notation, arbitrary coordinate switching at black hole horizons, wavefunction collapse as postulate rather than mechanism, the Born rule asserted rather than derived. These choices obscured physical mechanisms behind elegant formalism.

Part 2 provides a formal framework for doing Clean Physics and creates the foundation for the series that follows.

OFT addresses fundamental problems spanning quantum mechanics (the measurement problem, wave-particle duality, wavefunction collapse, the Born rule), spacetime (why c is constant, why time dilates, why length contraction), gravity (its origin, the equivalence principle, quantum gravity dissolved), and particle physics (the hierarchy problem, confinement, spin-½, charge quantisation, three generations, the mass gap). The framework dissolves the need for renormalisation, virtual particles, and the entire apparatus of second quantisation.

The nine papers are deliberately structured as a curriculum, guiding the reader on a pedagogically sound journey out of the century-old confusing maze of legacy orthodox physics towards a physically-grounded, fully deterministic and unified theory of physical law.