I'm curious about something...
When you guys talk about entropy, matter and energy can you answer one question for me?
Why does E=mc^2?
i.e. what is mass and energy? Please use a specific definition, not an allegorical one.
Rather than wait for a reply I already know is coming, and will be insufficient, I will go ahead and point out that there is no axiomatic definition for any of them. There is a mathematical anomaly hidden in plain sight in the equation definition. Energy = mass times the speed of light squared. In other words, energy is completely relative to mass, and mass is completely relative to inertia of a frame of reference that is completely relative to the observer.
The closest approximation from first principles is the lattice QCD. Original paper here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-ph/9710463v1.pdf with an alternate method described here: http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-lat/9909003v1.pdf
There isn't a paper on doing the same using a differential frame lattice making no assumptions about inherent mass and types of fundamental particles. This is because a huge collaboration is needed to get the computing time to test the formulae and get a definitive result. It is, I need not overly stress, incomplete and contains a number of anomalies in the outcomes.
The issue here is that while the models claim to be based on 'first principles' they are in fact making all of their assumptions based on the classical physics definitions of what matter is and what energy is when in fact there is no solid classical definition for them.
For myself, I think it would be more 'scientific' if we didn't attempt to force our observations and measurements into a classical framework until they are well understood. By well understood, I mean until we have a solid relative model of interactions between the quantum and nuclear lattices.
It is my firm opinion that if we start with no assumptions other than differences (differentials) between boundaries we can build up physical (fermionic) fundamental particles as standing waves of potential. Bosons would therefore be the bleed-over in the boundaries as the standing waves are created by interaction with each other.
I fully realize this is a non-standard approach to building up first principles without firm ideas of what does and does not constitute a particle and that is not a comfortable starting point for many physicists. With that said, however, it is obvious that we do so already. Energy is potential and is already equated with matter and self-contained velocity through the equivalence principle.
One of the issues with driving down this vector of inquiry is that it implies a kind of weak anthropic principle. I call it 'a kind of weak anthropism' because I do not believe (make a pre-judgement) that a complex observer is required, but rather that time, and the speed of light, are a boundary zone of relative interaction between infinite potentials that observe themselves (another way of viewing entanglement).
In short, physical reality is a zone of probability approaching certainty (predictable outcome) that results in causality and reliable physics that can be expressed as single plane of relative interaction in a vector space of infinite possibility.
Of course, I am calling it 'implied' because it is extrapolated from differential potentials. I have nowhere near the computing resources to run this model. The few pieces I can run using resources I have access to show potential only.