Toward a fundamental mechanics. I

A conceptual purification of physics is advocated, whereby the idea of the field is completely eliminated in favor of particulate dynamical laws. Previous work concerning a specific formulation of such purely mechanical laws is reviewed and is shown to imply the possibility of existence of electrons and positrons within nuclei or ''elementary'' particles in stable bound states characterized by real mass-energy and imaginary momentum. The qualitative implications and the sufficiency of such concepts for physical description is examined