what are 8 trigrams?

Answer 1

According to wisdom of the Taoist Chinese philosophy, they are the binary hardware operating system of the universe.
The 8 trigrams are depicted by three lines drawn horizontally either solid (yang) or broken (yin) depending on which force of nature is being represented: heaven, earth, thunder, wind, water, fire, mountain and lake.
I find it very poetic when heaven is likened to father, earth to mother, thunder to first son, and so on. This subject is so complicated yet there is a highly readable informative book by Roger Green: The I Ching workbook: A step-by-step guide to learning the wisdom of the oracles. This book will answer all your questions on the subject.

Answer 2

My guess would be 24 grams. More info. to follow.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigram

Three letter or symbols or words as a defined set. Eight of those is 8 sets of three of something.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagua_%28concept%29

The bagua (Chinese: 八卦; Pinyin: bā guà; Wade-Giles: pa kua; literally "eight trigrams") is a fundamental philosophical concept in ancient China. It is an octagonal diagram with one trigram on each side. The concept of bagua is applied not only to Chinese Taoist thought and the I Ching, but is also used in other domains of Chinese culture, such as fengshui, martial arts, navigation, and so on.

Answer 3

Are you referring to the I Ching?

Answer 4

two dozen