Associahedra vs. the Octonions

These two slides appear at the beginning of Prof. Arkani-Hamed's engaging talk at TIFR yesterday. He described a very rich mathematical framework for the emergence of scattering amplitudes in spacetimes. However, it is not at all obvious how one can do something down to earth like obtaining the standard model, and/or make predictions for experiments, in this framework.

In contrast, the octonionic theory is relatively much more simple minded, and yet is a pre-spacetime pre-quantum theory from which GR and quantum theory are explicitly emergent. The theory incrementally departs from the standard model and from general relativity, and makes falsifiable predictions, while at the same time explaining several aspects of the standard model. It is not a multiverse theory - quite the opposite, it has no free parameters at all. All parameter values are determined by the algebra of the octonions.