Does Michael Darius Eastwood have scientific priority?
Michael Darius Eastwood claims priority of statement: a dated record of when he first stated each formulation, from his sealed manuscript of 8 December 2024 through the book of 2 January 2026 to the theory registered on 8 September 2026. Each row names the earlier work its search found. Recognition by a field, and proof, are not claimed.
Text reviewed 2026-10-31. Any earlier audio edition may differ; the dated text and linked records govern.
Priority here is a claim about a formulation and the date it was first stated, never about the underlying mathematics. The programme's earliest dated record is a self-emailed manuscript of 8 December 2024 (SHA-256 prefix f0d1f38f), whose headers, public on OSF since 15 October 2026, carry a verifiable DKIM signature; it states the embedded-correction alignment thesis in his own words, and it names the ARC Principle and the Eden Protocol. The printed book of 2 January 2026 (ISBN 978-1806056200) cannot be edited after the fact. The Priority Index, a working draft (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/H3R95), gives the earliest dated record of each major claim, and the priority ledger gives each claim its date, evidence and stated boundary.
Each kind of date is named for what it is: a private manuscript is not a public publication, a server signature dates bytes without proving authorship, and a timestamp receipt freezes bytes from its own date forward. Every row credits its ancestor, for example the matched-compute sequential result to Sharma and Chopra (4 November 2025), balanced-ternary computing to Setun (1958) and training against written principles to Constitutional AI (2022).
Each row also prints what would defeat it. One document predating 8 December 2024 that carries the control-failure thesis, the embedded-alignment solution and the recursion equation together would end the first arrangement, and the route for producing one is published.