This standalone preprint presents the basic principles of Relative Duality, a relational approach to foundational physics in which no background, observer, descriptive role, or external law is physically preferred at the fundamental level. The article introduces the core postulate that physical content consists only of relations and quantities invariant under admissible exchanges of descriptive roles. The paper is written as an accessible foundational note, partly in the spirit of early principle-based formulations of relativity. It explains the intended reciprocity between information and transformation, state and law, geometry and interaction, observer and effective law, and symmetry and admissible dynamics. At the formal level, the article summarizes the role-exchange idea through invariants, equivariant rewriting, and a mutual-commutant relation between represented role symmetries and compatible laws. The article also states a conditional observer-relative reading of space, energy, time, and neutrality, and briefly discusses how the standard Born probability form may be interpreted as an information–transformation pairing once a quantum event structure is assumed. These discussions are explicitly conditional and are not presented as derivations of established physical theories. This work does not claim to derive observed particles, the Standard Model, measured constants, general relativity, quantum field theory, or quantum measurement probabilities from first principles. It is intended as a concise statement of the foundational principles and open requirements of the Relative Duality research program.
This standalone preprint presents the basic principles of Relative Duality, a relational approach to foundational physics in which no background, observer, descriptive role, or external law is physically preferred at the fundamental level. The article introduces the core postulate that physical content consists only of relations and quantities invariant under admissible exchanges of descriptive roles. The paper is written as an accessible foundational note, partly in the spirit of early principle-based formulations of relativity. It explains the intended reciprocity between information and transformation, state and law, geometry and interaction, observer and effective law, and symmetry and admissible dynamics. At the formal level, the article summarizes the role-exchange idea through invariants, equivariant rewriting, and a mutual-commutant relation between represented role symmetries and compatible laws. The article also states a conditional observer-relative reading of space, energy, time, and neutrality, and briefly discusses how the standard Born probability form may be interpreted as an information–transformation pairing once a quantum event structure is assumed. These discussions are explicitly conditional and are not presented as derivations of established physical theories. This work does not claim to derive observed particles, the Standard Model, measured constants, general relativity, quantum field theory, or quantum measurement probabilities from first principles. It is intended as a concise statement of the foundational principles and open requirements of the Relative Duality research program.
Every physical theory is constructed from observations performed within a physical frame, and this frame enters the theory at a level antecedent to its equations — in the categorical structure through which observations are organized into a formalism. This is a structural condition on physical theory as such, not a hypothesis about any particular physical phenomenon; its character is analogous to the principle of general covariance, which constrains the form of physical laws without predicting the behavior of any specific system. The condition has a precise formal consequence in the geometric setting: for any non-invariant tensor field under a frame- transformation group, the components specified in any single frame are insufficient to determine the underlying geometric object without explicit specification of the frame. This consequence has been articulated four times in the foundations of physics — in the tensor reformulation of electrodynamics, in the relativity of simultaneity, in the unification of energy and momentum, and in the geometric unification of space and time — each time by identifying a frame-dependence carried implicitly in the prevailing formalism and absorbing it into a geometric object across the class of frames. Rovelli’s (1996) relational quantum mechanics is the most explicit contempo- rary articulation of the structural condition: the frame is the physical system to which a quantum state is referred, and the relational structure is exhibited directly at the level of the measurement interaction. The condition implies that relationality must arise wherever current physics is examined at the level of its foundations — not because relationality is a fundamental feature of the physics under description, but because it is a necessary feature of any theory constructed from observations performed within physical frames, and open foundational problems are most plausibly resolved by making implicit frame-dependences explicit rather than by eliminating them.
This work derives the fundamental framework of quantum mechanics intrinsically from the first-principle axioms of UD duality theory. Starting from the inherent binary expansive–condensative attributes of the UD ontology, four fundamental physical fields are naturally decomposed by spontaneous symmetry breaking across spatial and material existential domains. A two-component complex spinor structure is uniquely constructed, and the imaginary unit i is proven to be not merely a mathematical convention but a structurally necessary ingredient required by both the compact SU(2) symmetry and the orthogonal inter-containment of U and D attributes. Within the flat spacetime limit of the UD gravitational action, a system of coupled Klein–Gordon field equations is established, governed by a single self-consistent fundamental mass scale m₀=1/(2πe^π) with no adjustable free parameters. The coupling constant is determined analytically from the UD vacuum equilibrium background values and the U↔D duality symmetry. Through explicit construction of four-component Dirac spinors and auxiliary field decomposition, the on-shell equivalence between the UD coupled field equations and the free Dirac equation is rigorously demonstrated. The non-relativistic limit further recovers the Pauli equation and the Schrödinger equation sequentially, reconstructing the core dynamical equations of quantum mechanics from a unified foundational origin. Global U(1) phase invariance of the UD action is verified via total-derivative decomposition, yielding the standard Noether conserved current. The Born probability interpretation is deduced directly from the global normalization axiom by isolating localized laboratory-scale excitations from the cosmic background, eliminating the need for independent quantum postulates. Based on the intrinsic properties of the UD field components, a self-consistent ontological interpretation is provided for wave–particle duality, double-slit interference, and the quantum measurement problem. In this framework, the measurement problem is dissolved rather than solved: no collapse postulate is required, and determinism is restored at the ontological level. The theory naturally implies that the continuous D_U field permits quantum superposition, while condensed D_D intrinsic entities possess definite classicality without physical particle-state superposition. Three testable theoretical predictions are presented, establishing falsifiable physical consequences of the UD quantum formulation. This paper completes the intrinsic derivation of the foundational structure of quantum mechanics from UD theory. Together with the previously derived general relativity framework, it realizes the homologous unification of gravity and quantum mechanics within a single self-contained axiomatic system.
This paper introduces Axiom 0, a minimal foundational principle for physical reality: the impossibility of any globally closed description of the total correlational structure. Rather than postulating space, time, dynamics, locality, or physical laws as primitive, the framework assumes only: (i) the existence of a correlational structure, (ii) the structural impossibility of complete self-closure, and (iii) consistency under partial comparison. From these ingredients, the paper shows how: physical laws emerge as stabilizing regularities of incomplete descriptions, time, dynamics, and geometry arise as effective, regime-dependent structures, irreversibility follows from projection and information loss, and why no description can be both exact and globally complete. Non-closure is treated as an ontological constraint, not as epistemic ignorance or observer dependence. Physical reality exists precisely because complete closure is impossible, independently of observation or modeling. The paper does not attempt to replace existing physical theories or derive numerical constants. Instead, it provides a structural foundation within which effective physical theories (quantum, classical, relativistic, and open-system regimes) can be consistently understood as emergent and domain-limited. This work is intended as a conceptual and structural foundation for correlational and relational approaches to fundamental physics, clarifying the origin of laws, dynamics, and physical regularity without invoking additional ontological postulates.
This work presents a two-stage first-principles construction for foundational physics. In the first stage, an axiomatic framework is introduced in which physical objecthood is defined exclusively through participation in observation–feedback (OF) processes. At this axiomatic level, no background spacetime, metric, Hilbert space, or symmetry group is assumed a priori. In the second stage, a minimal faithful realization of this framework is adopted, consisting of a set of explicitly stated, controlled algebraic choices that support finite operational distinguishability. Within this minimal realization, a hierarchy of physically significant structures is consistently represented: an internal O(3) symmetry with oriented SO(3) sectors; a Lorentz-type kinematical structure with invariant group SO⁺(3,1) (the proper orthochronous Lorentz group) and an associated invariant propagation scale that occupies the structural role of the conventional speed c; and a minimal closure scale that, under standard action-dimensional normalization, plays a structural role analogous to that of the reduced Planck constant ℏ. This construction thus provides a unified relational setting in which the core kinematical architectures of special relativity and quantum mechanics admit a consistent, operationally grounded representation, realized under explicitly stated minimal assumptions. No derivation of dynamical equations or direct identification with empirical spacetime geometry is claimed.
This component develops the formal consequences of Invariant Core Theory and analyzes time, dynamics, Hilbert-space, and spacetime representations as regime-dependent realizations of the invariant core. Version "v7 Clean"removes publisher branding; content unchanged. Orientation for Readers – P2: Formal Structure and Consequences of the Invariant Core Theory This paper develops the structural consequences of the Invariant Core Theory (ICT) established in P1. It does not extend the formal core and does not introduce new axioms. Instead, it analyzes how familiar physical description frameworks arise—or fail to arise—as admissible representations of that core. What this paper does It examines time, dynamics, Hilbert-space formalisms, and spacetime geometry as representations, not as fundamental structures. It formulates explicit admissibility criteria (e.g. kernel-faithfulness and regime transparency). It explains why certain features of modern physics - entanglement, absence of global time, probabilistic structure, spacetime curvature - are structurally necessary, not dynamical assumptions. It derives structural no-go results that constrain admissible theory construction. This paper answers the question: Given the invariant core, which forms of physical description are possible - and under which conditions do they break down? What this paper deliberately does not do It does not propose new physical laws or interactions. It does not unify quantum theory and general relativity dynamically. It does not derive numerical predictions or fit experimental data. It does not claim ontological priority for any representational framework. Any reading of this paper as a competing physical theory, interpretation, or model would therefore be a category error. How to read this paper All results are structural and representational, not dynamical. “Predictions” are constraints on admissibility, not empirical forecasts. No-go statements exclude classes of explanations, not observed phenomena. Apparent conflicts between quantum and geometric descriptions are treated as representational conflicts, not physical contradictions. The paper should be read as a map of representational regimes and limits, not as a proposal for new dynamics. Intended audience This work is addressed to readers with background in: theoretical or mathematical physics, foundations of quantum theory or relativity, philosophy of physics with interest in structure and representation. Familiarity with standard formalisms is assumed, but the paper does not presuppose agreement with any particular interpretation or unification program. Relation to P1 and scope of validity P2 presupposes the formal core developed in P1. No concept introduced here has independent meaning outside that core. Conversely, P1 is structurally complete without P2, while P2 is conceptually dependent on P1. Together, the two papers form a closed framework: P1 establishes what must be structurally true. P2 analyzes how physical descriptions can be admissible given those truths.
It is generally believed that physical laws, reflecting an inherent order in the universe, are ordained by nature. However, in modern physics the observer plays a central role raising questions about how an observer-centric physics can result in laws apparently worthy of a universal nature-centric physics. Over the last decade, we have found that the consistent apt quantification of algebraic and order-theoretic structures results in calculi that possess constraint equations taking the form of what are often considered to be physical laws. I review recent derivations of the formal relations among relevant variables central to special relativity, probability theory and quantum mechanics in this context by considering a problem where two observers form consistent descriptions of and make optimal inferences about a free particle that simply influences them. I show that this approach to describing such a particle based only on available information leads to the mathematics of relativistic quantum mechanics as well as a description of a free particle that reproduces many of the basic properties of a fermion. The result is an approach to foundational physics where laws derive from both consistent descriptions and optimal information-based inferences made by embedded observers.