cff-version: 1.2.0
version: '1.9.1'
message: 'If you use or discuss this paper, please cite it using this metadata.'
title: 'Register · The ARC Theory · Operational Definitions'
authors:
  - family-names: 'Eastwood'
    given-names: 'Michael Darius'
    orcid: 'https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3222-7442'
date-released: '2026-10-05'
url: 'https://www.michaeldariuseastwood.com/research/papers/operational-definitions.html'
license: 'CC-BY-4.0'
identifiers:
  - type: doi
    value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/GVQ82'
    description: 'OSF component DOI for this paper (operational-definitions)'
  - type: doi
    value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/6C5XB'
    description: 'OSF umbrella DOI for the ARC / Eden Research Programme'
preferred-citation:
  type: article
  title: 'Register · The ARC Theory · Operational Definitions'
  authors:
    - family-names: 'Eastwood'
      given-names: 'Michael Darius'
      orcid: 'https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3222-7442'
  date-published: '2026-08-22'
  url: 'https://www.michaeldariuseastwood.com/research/papers/operational-definitions.html'
  doi: '10.17605/OSF.IO/GVQ82'
  identifiers:
    - type: doi
      value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/GVQ82'
      description: 'OSF component DOI for this paper (operational-definitions)'
    - type: doi
      value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/6C5XB'
      description: 'OSF umbrella DOI for the ARC / Eden Research Programme'
    - type: doi
      value: '10.17605/OSF.IO/P8CKQ'
      description: 'Theory-level predictions preregistered on OSF: DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/P8CKQ, registered 8 September 2026 (version 1.100), updated 13 September 2026 (version 1.102), twenty-two propositions. Companion: Register · The ARC Theory · Operational Definitions, version 1.9.1, 5 October 2026.'
  abstract: |
    This document fixes what each symbol in the ARC Theory's equations means and how it would be measured. It ranks the twenty-one equations the programme relies upon for Laws I to III by how much depends on each, from the ARC Equation of Law I, U = I x R^alpha, through Law II's criterion, beta_C > k, and Law III's ceiling, alpha_crit = 1 / (1 - gamma), to the statistical methods the experiments use. It defines thirty-eight symbols in plain words, pairs each with the measurement that would produce it, names the nine letters the corpus uses for more than one quantity, and records the seven forms the programme has retracted, with the reason each was wrong. It reports no result and asserts no value: every figure it quotes is carried from the paper that measured it. The theory has five laws. Laws I to III were registered on 8 September 2026; Laws IV and V, the ARC Persistence Law and the ARC Embedding Law, were added on 24 September 2026, their propositions registered and neither law yet registered as a law or tested. Their notation is fixed in section 1 of their mathematics, version 1.0 (3 October 2026), and joins this document at its next version.

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