Reading path
A route through the central idea of PDT: relations and phase, candidates that remain admissible, the last coherent survivor, and the records that build a history.
The ideas in everyday language
The same picture that working physicists encounter, written without jargon while keeping the ideas that matter.
What does PDT start from?
Distinctions and relationships. Instead of beginning with particles or a fixed space, PDT begins with things that can be told apart and compared, and treats phase as part of that starting structure. This is an explicit assumption, whose consequences are then worked out mathematically.
What is relational phase?
Picture two clock hands. Their positions can be compared as an angle: that is a relative phase. The clock illustrates the angle; in PDT the definition is the comparison itself, together with rules for combining one comparison with the next.
What makes a candidate admissible?
A candidate is one possible record in a particular episode. A model supplies a rule, fixed in advance, saying which candidates are still allowed as the episode goes on. Admissible simply means still allowed by that rule.
What is the last coherent survivor?
If the rule removes candidates until, at some first stage, exactly one remains, that one is the last coherent survivor. The principle called A6 then takes it to become an actual record. If there is a tie and none remain, no record is made.
How are records different from clock time?
Records put events in an order. A clock is a physical process matched to measured duration, which needs its own identification and calibration. How long a memory lasts depends on the physical system that stores it.
Where does the explanation stop?
PDT adopts realisation through A6. It does not claim to explain why anything is actual at all. Within that boundary, physical models still have to explain apparatus, records, energy and geometry.
Start with the current foundations
The R00–R13 foundational suite is the current formulation of PDT. Begin with R00, the suite guide, then follow the steps below.
PDT asks whether things can be understood through the relationships between them, rather than starting from objects with fixed properties.
You'll come away withWhy distinctions and relational comparisons form the starting structure.
A phase is an angle around a circle. Here it is attached to a comparison between two things, and successive comparisons combine by explicit rules.
You'll come away withWhat relational phase means, and why a loop of comparisons carries extra information.
Step through candidates A, B and C as a stated rule removes them one stage at a time, then compare a tie in which nothing survives.
You'll come away withWhen the realisation principle applies, and why a process can fail to produce a record.
Mathematics can show that exactly one candidate survives. A6 is the separate, adopted commitment that this survivor becomes an actual record.
You'll come away withThe difference between what is proved and what is adopted.
Records put events in order. A clock is something more: a physical process matched to measured duration. Keeping a record reliably depends on the system that stores it.
You'll come away withWhy record order, the steps of a selection and clock time are kept distinct.
The foundations connect to physics by identifying mathematical structures with preparations, instruments, clocks and geometry. Each identification is a stated assumption.
You'll come away withWhich connections exist and which assumptions they use.
When you are ready for the precise statements, the R00 to R13 suite gives the axioms, definitions and constructions.
You'll come away withThe current formulation of PDT, beginning with the suite guide R00.
The book
The Phase Differential Theory book has been written for thoughtful readers who want to explore the framework without needing advanced mathematics. It presents the ideas as one connected narrative while placing the detailed mathematics, derivations, and proofs in supporting appendices.
Research updates
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