Michael K. Baines

Honor system · Print edition in preparation

A Quest for The Big TOE

What is the universe made of? An information-first approach to physics, set out as predictions that can be tested, with the evidence for and against each one.

Read first, then decide. If paying would be a hardship, the book is yours. If you can afford it and it is worth something to you, please pay whatever you want. It keeps the work from running at a loss and recovers some of the cost and time behind it.

Cover of A Quest for The Big TOE: The COSMIC Framework’s Theory of Everything

About the book

A theory that tells you how to test it

The book starts from one idea: that information is physical, and that the universe processes it. It follows that idea through twenty-one elements, from why nothing in your hand is ever really touching anything, to gravity, quantum mechanics, the cosmic microwave background and consciousness. It keeps what physics has already confirmed: the four dimensions we observe, the Standard Model and quantum mechanics.

Where the ideas make claims about the world, the book says what measurement would settle them. Those predictions are registered in public before the data arrive, at the Ic² Research Institute, and every result is published.

New to physics? Elements 1, 2 and 3 need little background, so start there.

The book's home at the Ic² Research Institute

A living book

Revised in public

The book changes when the evidence does, and every change is shown. Each new version lists what was corrected, added or withdrawn, and every earlier edition stays available, so anyone can see how the thinking moved. The current version is 6E, released October 2026.

See every edition and what changed

On paper

The print edition

A printed edition is being prepared. The book is long, and printing it at home takes real time, paper and ink. A professionally printed copy should cost about the same, or less, and arrives bound and ready to read.

The printed copy is a snapshot of one version. The online edition stays current, so you can always check what has changed since your copy was printed.

Nothing is for sale yet and no price is set. Subscribers to the newsletter hear first when it is ready.

The newsletter

Hear when it is in print

Occasional notes from the work in progress, and first word when each book is out.

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