The original article at Quanta Magazine has been discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17575585

I highly recommend you watch her thesis on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBTUVg91bao

You don’t have to be a math wiz to appreciate the octonion model and it’s implications for fundamental particle physics.

It really is a beautiful insight of profound proportions.

There are higher dimensional algebras, too. We have: 4-dimensional quaternions, 8-dimensional octonions, 16-dimensional sedenions, 32-dimensional trigintaduonions, 64-dimensional sexagintaquattuornions, 128-dimensional centumduodetrigintanions, 256-dimensional ducentiquinquagintasexions

Who knows, maybe reality is explained by even higher dimensional systems. The 32 dimensional algebra ends with "onion," so that's my pick.

Discussion about octonions from 12 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17575585 (186 comments)