A Modest Proposal for Physicists: On the Superfluous Nature of Eleven Dimensions When One Will Suffice
Institutional dynamics in theoretical physics
It is a melancholy object to those who walk through physics departments, when they see corridors crowded with string theorists, each maintaining their own compactification of extra dimensions, their boards covered with Calabi-Yau manifolds that no experiment will ever detect, their careers suspended in an elaborate mathematical chrysalis from which no testable prediction will ever emerge.
These unfortunate scholars, instead of being able to explain to their grandmothers why water flows downhill, are reduced to muttering about branes and dualities, spending the prime of their intellectual vigor computing the properties of 10500 different vacua, none of which resemble our universe.
I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of dimensions in the theorists’ accounts is, in the present deplorable state of physics, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of reducing physics to comprehensible principles would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of sanity.
But my intention is far from being confined to provide only for the distressed string theorists computing properties of universes that exist only in grant proposals; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of paradoxes, mysteries, and inexplicable phenomena which currently sustain the field, from the measurement problem to dark matter, from wave-particle duality to the conscience-soothing notion that consciousness collapses wave functions.
On the Current State of Mystification
As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in their computation. They propose ever more dimensions, particles, and parallel universes, when the account clearly shows we have already exceeded our explanatory budget by several orders of magnitude.
The mother field, I am assured by our very knowing theorists, currently maintains no fewer than seventeen fundamental particles, four fundamental forces (which stubbornly refuse unification despite decades of mathematical coercion), and dark components comprising 95% of everything—a fiscal embarrassment that would shame any competent accountant.
On the Multiplication of Mysteries
It is indeed a source of considerable wonder that each solution to a problem in modern physics generates, on average, three additional problems of equal or greater inscrutability. The measurement problem, having persisted for a full century, has spawned countless interpretations, each more baroque than the last, like theological scholars debating how many angels might dance upon a pin, if the pin existed in superposition.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
I have been assured by a very knowing friend of mine that reality consists of but a single continuous field, engaged in gradient dynamics with itself, requiring neither particles nor waves nor the conscious intervention of observers to collapse it into existence. This friend, having made careful calculations, finds that all observable phenomena emerge from these simple dynamics, much as all of Shakespeare emerges from twenty-six letters, variously arranged.
On the Thermodynamics of Theoretical Complexity
But before I proceed to the particulars of my scheme, I must first address a principle I have discovered, which I call Animal’s Law of Compensatory Adaptation, which I have named after myself, in humble humility, whereby any attempt to simplify physics will generate complexity exactly proportional to the collective cognitive capacity of physicists worldwide. Consider the Large Hadron Collider, a 27-kilometer circle built to find particles that, once found, will demand an even larger circle to explain. This ensures continuous employment through what economists smartly call the “Circular Accelerator Economy.”
But more to the point at hand: we employ some fifty thousand of the finest minds, each trained for a decade or more in the highest mathematics. When presented with a simple explanation, their combined modeling capacity—which could otherwise solve problems of genuine import—must dissipate somewhere. Thus, as surely as compressed gas heats, compressed theories complexify.
This ensures, to my great relief, that no simplification could ever truly threaten employment, as the field will unconsciously generate sufficient interpretational controversy to maintain all positions.
Chapter the First: Concerning the Curious Prevalence of Paradoxes
I have made careful study of our field’s numerous paradoxes and find them to fall into distinct categories:
First, those arising from cutting continuous phenomena in half and expressing surprise at the edges (wave-particle duality, quantum-classical boundary).
Second, those emerging from taking our mathematical tools literally (collapse of wave functions, virtual particles popping from nothing).
Third, those we create by declaring most of the universe conveniently invisible when our models fail (dark matter, dark energy).
A modest suggestion: perhaps these are not deep mysteries but simple accounting errors, like a student who, having divided by zero, concludes that infinity exists in their pencil case.
On the Measurement Problem, So-Called
The measurement problem has provided comfortable employment for three generations of physicists, who debate endlessly whether consciousness collapses wave functions, whether all possible outcomes occur in parallel worlds, or whether objective collapse occurs at precisely 10-13 meters (though why the universe should care about this particular distance remains underexplained)... I am unaware of any proofs that the universe cares about tenure committees, but I have been wrong before, so I abstain courteously, suspending judgement to the experts.
I venture to propose that particles have positions whether we look at them or not, just as my contemporaries have salaries whether I observe their bank accounts or not. The “problem” exists only if we insist our statistical tools for handling our ignorance must be reality itself—like insisting the average rainfall is the rain.
On Dark Matter: The Emperor’s New Particles
When galaxies refused to rotate according to our calculations, we had two choices:
Revise our models.
Declare 85% of all matter invisible.
Naturally, being pragmatic and wise, we chose the second option, creating an entire industry devoted to detecting what isn’t there, or rather, what must be there but refuses all interaction save gravity—the cosmic equivalent of the child’s invisible friend who breaks vases.
Chapter the Second: A Simple Alternative
What if—and I venture this with all due humility—reality is exactly what it appears to be? A continuous field, gradienting against itself, like wind creating waves, requiring neither eleven dimensions nor observer consciousness to exist?
I calculate the savings at once: Ten unnecessary dimensions eliminated, saving thousands of hours of graduate student suffering. The measurement problem dissolved, freeing up entire conferences. Dark matter revealed as simply gradients we cannot measure electromagnetically, like trying to see wind with a telescope.
But I anticipate the objection: “What of our beautiful mathematics? Our gauge theories? Our Lie groups and manifolds?”
Fear not! These remain as valuable as ever—not as descriptions of reality, but as compression algorithms, necessitated by a principle so fundamental I hesitate to share it, lest it destroy all mystery forever.
The Cognitive Event Horizon: A Proof
Consider: Any finite system S has finite energy E_total. To model anything requires minimum energy kT ln(2) per bit of information. Therefore, for sufficiently complex targets, the energy needed to model them exceeds all available energy. For instance, completely modeling the quantum state of a teacup would require more energy than our solar system will produce in its apparently pathetically short lifetime. And perhaps more troubling, to fully model the quantum state of a single grain of sand would require more energy than the sun produces in a year, which explains why my days on the beach pass so classically.
The implications are devastating yet, as we will see, luckily moralizing and not demoralizing to the belabored scientist: complete theories are thermodynamically impossible. We must compress, and compression creates artifacts. Every “paradox” in physics? An artifact of our mandatory compression. We assume our rounding errors don’t matter, because they often are irrelevant for impressing undergraduates or… much of anything save the phenomena we were just talking about. Our rounding errors don’t merely matter—they seemingly dark matter.
We are like cartographers forced to draw three-dimensional terrain on flat paper, then puzzling over why the edges don’t align.
Chapter the Third: On the Generation of Employment Through Paradox
I shall now demonstrate the proper method for converting any continuous phenomenon into perpetual employment:
Step the First: Take any gradient process (say, electromagnetic fields)
Step the Second: Force it into discrete mathematics (photons)
Step the Third: Express genuine bewilderment when the discrete and continuous descriptions conflict
Step the Fourth: Propose increasingly complex mathematics to reconcile what you unnecessarily separated
Step the Fifth: Ensure the mathematics requires specialized training, guaranteeing employment
This method, properly applied, has sustained quantum foundations research for a full century with no sign of exhaustion. A true perpetual motion machine!
A Catalog of Convenient Confusions
Wave-Particle Duality: Is it a wave? Is it a particle? Impossible to say! Exactly like being shocked how your spouse appears different from front and side. The “duality” exists not in nature but in our insistence on separate categories. This was precisely the shock I felt upon realizing that a cylinder looks like a circle from one angle and a rectangle from another. Is it not irreconcilable?
Quantum Tunneling: Particles appear where they “shouldn’t.” Dare I wonder that perhaps our “shouldn’t” is wrong? When water flows uphill in a siphon, we don’t invoke quantum mechanics—we recognize our naive model has missed something.
The Fine-Tuning Problem: We exist, therefore constants must allow our existence. A puddle marveling that the hole fits it perfectly. The profundity escapes me.
Virtual Particles: Particles that exist exactly long enough to make equations balance but never long enough to measure. The generous universe provides us with IOUs, conveniently, that can never be collected. Among the virtues of the vertiginous virtual particle is that they are entities that exist exactly long enough to make our math pencil out but never so long as to be taken to court and sued for fraud. One is reminded of the Medieval cartographer who wrote so presciently, “HERE BE DRAGONS.”
Entanglement, or Spooky Action at a Distance: We divided an entangled system into “separate” particles, then got spooked when they stayed correlated. Like cutting a rope in half, walking the pieces to opposite ends of town, then being mystified that both are still made of hemp. The “mystery” exists only because we insisted the pieces became independent objects rather than remaining parts of the same rope. Einstein called it spooky because even he couldn’t see past the compression artifact of “particle.” Had he said “gradient patterns in the same field remain correlated,” the spookiness evaporates—but so may several physics departments.
Chapter the Fourth: Why Gravity Refuses Quantization
For fifty years, our finest minds have attempted to quantize gravity, a noble task, which generated ever more elaborate mathematics, each failure spawning three new research programs.
If a humble observer might suggest: Gravity resists quantization because it isn’t quantum. It’s the continuous substrate showing through our discrete sampling. Trying to quantize gravity is like trying to pixelate smoothness itself.
But such a simple explanation may generate frustratingly few grants.
On the Virtue of Compression Schemes
Let me be clear: Quantum mechanics works splendidly. Classical mechanics works splendidly. General relativity works splendidly. Each is the optimal compression algorithm for its scale, given thermodynamic constraints.
The “mystery” arises only when we try to decompress—to recover information we necessarily discarded. We are trying to reconstruct Dostoevsky from a summary, then being shocked when details conflict.
Chapter the Fifth: The Conservation of Confusion
I have discovered a principle that ensures eternal employment in theoretical physics: Confusion can neither be created nor destroyed, only transformed from one form to another.
Solve wave-particle duality → Create measurement problem
Solve measurement problem → Create consciousness paradox
Solve consciousness paradox → Create information paradox ad infinitum...
The total confusion remains constant, merely shifting form, like a shell game where finding one ball reveals three more under other cups.
On String Theory: A Cautionary Tale
String theory represents the apotheosis of complexity generation—a theory with 10500 possible configurations, none matching reality, unfalsifiable yet somehow still “science.” A mystery I cannot even begin to ponder.
String theory is what happens when compression schemes escape empirical constraint entirely—pure mathematics masquerading as physics, epicycles with tenure.
Chapter the Sixth: On the Suspicious Convenience of Identical Particles
Physicists assure me that all electrons are identical, perfectly indistinguishable. Yet they also tell me each occupies different positions, arrived via different paths, exists in different field configurations. Now tell me, for I am often mistaken, do identical twins separated at birth wind up “identical” at death? I venture to suggest the esteemed profession may have confused “identical” with the Pig Latin, “ow-hay onvenient-cay” which I believe translates to roughly, “I cannot measure the differences,” in the common vernacular.
Consider: no two carbon atoms can be truly identical—they vibrate at different frequencies, occupy different positions, experience different local fields. Yet chemistry proceeds by treating them as interchangeable. This works not because they are identical but because their differences fall below the resolution that affects bonding. We round 1.00001 and 1.00002 both to 1, then marvel that mathematics is universal.
The same fiction appears at every scale:
“Same species” (ignoring the fact that no two organisms share the same DNA or developmental history)
“Same person” (despite replacing most of your atoms every seven years)
“Same university” (though every student and professor has changed since its founding)
I propose that identity in nature is always a rounding error—a compression artifact where we ignore variations below our measurement threshold. Nature produces no two identical anythings; only our limited resolution creates categories. Personally, and for the most part, I don’t care to quibble about such minor differences. But then again I am not a physicist.
This explains quantum “weirdness” immediately: we’re trying to apply binary logic (is/isn’t an electron) to continuous phenomena that never had sharp boundaries. The particle is neither wave nor particle but a gradient-pattern we’ve arbitrarily bounded for computational convenience.
One wonders: if our “fundamental constants” are merely local equilibrium values of gradient dynamics, might they drift imperceptibly over cosmic time? Perhaps, another variation of a rounding error. I leave this to profounder future generations to ponder, as they will have little else to do once the conservation of confusion ensures full employment regardless.
Chapter the Seventh: Grandmother Cannot Derive Cookies from Quarks
The reductionists assure me all sciences reduce to physics. The emergentists insist each science stands alone. Yet my grandmother’s cookie recipe from quantum chromodynamics would require tracking 10^26 quarks. The calculation exceeds not just the galaxy’s energy budget (pathetic) but the energy budget of the entire universe (apparently also pathetic). Not difficult—impossible. And yet these same cookies still obey physics… A curious outcome indeed. The same gradient dynamics that govern quarks apparently also govern dough. We find power laws in particle jets and population dynamics, criticality in magnets and markets, phase transitions in water and societies. But why? Only certain patterns survive coarse-graining. Every science rediscovers the same universality classes because they’re all that remain visible at any scale.
So I must submit for consideration that biology isn’t “more than” physics—it’s physics compressed differently. Psychology isn’t “emergent”—it’s gradients viewed through frosted glass. The hierarchy of sciences mirrors our hierarchy of necessary and adaptive blindness. Each field discovers optimal compression for its scale, calls this “fundamental principles,” and ponders why they can’t derive the level above. My grandmother’s cookies remain underivable, yet perfectly physical (and perfectly delicious.) Another conservation law: the conservation of computational futility.
Chapter the Eighth: Practical Predictions
Unlike certain theories that shall remain nameless (but have eleven dimensions), this simple gradient field view makes testable predictions:
Gravitational waves should show continuous spectrum, not quantization
Dark matter should map exactly to subthreshold gradient dynamics
Consciousness shouldn’t collapse anything (observe: the Moon!)
But I worry these predictions, being testable, lack the job security of untestable ones.
Chapter the Ninth: On the Proliferation of Conferences
Where physicists gather to agree that nobody understands quantum mechanics, then return home to teach uncertainty with absolute certainty. At such gatherings, senior physicists give talks titled “What We Don’t Know About Quantum Mechanics” for which they receive standing ovations and distinguished medals. Junior physicists present posters on “Preliminary Failures to Understand Basic Phenomena” which earn them postdoctoral positions. The conference proceedings, published in journals costing $3,000 per subscription, consist entirely of sophisticated ways of saying “we remain confused, but at a higher level than last year.”
Chapter the Tenth: Concerning a Small Mathematical Observation of No Particular Consequence
I beg leave to trouble the reader with a trifling mathematical curiosity I have lately encountered, which I mention only in passing, as it seems of little practical import, though perhaps amusing to those of a theoretical disposition.
When one integrates a uniform field—that is, one having the same value φ₀ at every point—over infinite space, a peculiar result emerges:
The total energy diverges, somewhat inconveniently, to infinity. Configurations of this sort are—unless I am mistaken, which I rarely am on Tuesdays—formally excluded from what mathematicians call “physically admissible solution spaces,” which require, with tiresome tediosity, that total energy be finite. I hasten to add that this is surely well-known to every undergraduate, trivial beyond mention, and doubtless already accounted for in all our theories through mechanisms too sophisticated for my humble understanding. And yet this leads me to constantly wonder about the constants… Should the speed of light with value c at location x₁ and also value c at location x₂, and indeed value c at every location across infinite space, then we have what my mathematician friends drily term, “a uniform field.” But by the unfortunate calculation above, am I to believe this would require infinite energy to maintain? Oh, but perhaps constants aren’t fields at all! But some super Platonic entities floating above space, casting uniform numerical shadows. Or it might be more advantageous to calculate simply that they’re straight-forwardly exempt from energy requirements, through special dispensation from the Department of Fundamental Things That Don’t Cost Anything Or Count In the First Place. But then, I am easily confused by simple things, like why a quantity measurable at different locations wouldn’t constitute a field, or why certain fields would be excused from thermodynamic bookkeeping while others are not.
On the Biggest of Bangs
Another microscopic difficulty: a well-known theory regarding the start of this and that posits that “all space” began in a uniform, high-density state. Applying our trivial integral:
An infinite-energy initial condition! How marvelous. The student cheated on the entrance exam but became fantastically scrupulous thereafter. I have no cosmologist friends to bother with this. Perhaps the universe, as it were, was born finite and only later decided to become infinite. Or perhaps “uniform” means something different when applied to initial conditions—uniform except where it isn’t, which is nowhere we’ve looked but everywhere we haven’t.
On the Death of Heat
That cheerful finale whence the universe reaches maximum entropy density s_max uniform across infinite space leads me to conjecture:
But this gestures towards an equally awkward situation: the Second Law insists entropy increases toward maximum. Yet when S_max = ∞, the condition S = S_max becomes rather like asking whether infinity equals infinity—one might almost suspect—that equilibrium is mathematically undefined for infinite systems. But then, what is the Second Law driving toward? I have looked, once, twice and now many times, and still I see no attractor state. Your humble narrator is led to suspect that the arrow points in a circle of eternal return. I hesitate to sign my name onto a death certificate for Heat Death.
Trifles and Curiosities
The identical particle postulate suffers similarly. If all electrons have identical mass m₀ everywhere, we have another uniform field:
By my pedestrian calculation, maintaining identical particles across infinite space would require—oh dear—just about—no exactly—infinite energy again. Each uniformity costs infinite energy. Perhaps we should secure new accountants or, more expediently, give them a significant raise?
On the Rounding Off Of Rounding Errors
When the esteemed profession says, “uniform everywhere,” do we mean “uniform within the observable universe, and we haven’t the foggiest what happens beyond?” Perhaps all swans are white after all. Or perhaps you are like me, and get both hungry and sleepy sometimes, and other times, we take one’s own proclamations about reality a bit too literally. “Parallel lines never meet”—useful—but just don’t push too hard.
Hypothetically, if uniformity across infinite space were thermodynamically inadmissible, the consequences would be of some minor amusement, which Very Serious Persons would have already cataloged extensively in various departments and journals. I present these observations not as criticisms—heaven forfend!—but as curiosities that surely have been resolved by greater and more patient minds. That infinity times anything positive equals infinity is hardly news. That we can’t have infinite energy is likewise established. That we claim uniform fields across infinite space is documented everywhere. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation that gets everyone to bed on time. How terrifically inconvenient some greater thermodynamic impossibility might be. But think of the new research! No doubt I’ve made some elementary error, probably in the first line, possibly in assuming that mathematics applies to physics with any sort of consistency. I therefore withdraw this chapter entirely and apologize for wasting the reader’s time with triviality.
A Planck Scale Quiz
Answer the following questions. Choose B.
Problem: Galaxy rotation wrong
A) Revise our models
B) Declare 85% of universe invisible
Problem: Constants need explanation
A) Explain why these values
B) Postulate 10500 universes
Problem: Particles sometimes act like waves
A) They’re neither particles nor waves
B) They’re both simultaneously
Problem: Can’t tell if cat in box is dead
A) Open box and check
B) Cat is both alive and deadChapter the Eleventh: A Modest Conclusion
I can think of no one objection that will possibly be raised against this proposal, unless it should be urged that simplifying physics to a single gradient field would eliminate the need for eleven-dimensional mathematics, thereby rendering obsolete decades of training and thousands of papers.
To this I answer: Fear not! Thanks to the Law of Compensatory Adaptation, any simplification will generate precisely equal complexity elsewhere. The fifty thousand physicists currently employed will unconsciously ensure that understanding “one gradient field” requires exactly as much effort as understanding string theory. Nature abhors a simplification.
On the Reversal of Reasonable Assumptions
I am frequently asked to defend the plain daylight assertion that our theories are compression schemes. Taking a page from Aristotle, I demur: “But, good sirs and madams, how could they possibly be otherwise?”
Given that complete quantum description of a parsimonious teacup exceeds our solar system’s lifetime energy budget, every measurement requires minimum energy kT ln(2) per bit, and the human brain runs on approximately 20 watts… How exactly would we not be doing compression? What alternative is even conceivable? Are we to believe that 20-watt meat computers have somehow bypassed thermodynamic law to achieve infinite information processing? The burden of proof surely lies with those claiming we’re doing anything other than compression.
I observe with wonder that physicists, when their theories break at boundaries, declare they haven’t yet found the “true” fundamental theory—rather than concluding the patently obvious: we’re using different compression schemes optimized for different scales.
When the carpenter’s saw won’t cut his soup and then his spoon won’t cut through wood, does he lament and seek the One True Tool™ that handles all substances? Far be it from me to suggest that different tasks require different implements.
Yet physicists, finding quantum mechanics stubbornly will not describe gravity and general relativity won’t describe atoms, insist there must be some Ultimate Theory that does both. They’ve spent fifty years seeking this chimera—this Swiss Army knife—generating ever more baroque mathematics, rather than accepting the carpenter’s wisdom: different scales require distinct tools.
The extraordinary claim isn’t that we’re doing compression—thermodynamics, nay, mere logic, shows that we are. The extraordinary claim is that beings powered by sandwiches have somehow discovered Fundamental Truth™ despite having less computational capacity than would be needed to fully model a grain of sand.
I therefore propose we cease seeking the One True Tool™ and instead celebrate our magnificent collection of specialized implements, each perfectly suited—dare I say, adapted?—to its peculiar domain and useless outside it, exactly as thermodynamics predicts.
On the Benefits to Society
The advantages of my proposal are obvious and many:
First, it would greatly reduce the expense of graduate education, as students would no longer need to master non-existent dimensions.
Second, it would enable actual predictions, a novelty that might reinvigorate experimental physics.
Third, it would free up brilliant minds currently calculating the properties of 10^500 non-existent universes to work on problems that exist.
Fourth, it would allow physicists to explain their work to their families without resorting to lies or metaphors about rubber sheets.
An Anticipation of Objections
“But,” cry the learned doctors, “what of Beauty? What of Elegance? What of the deep mathematical structures we’ve discovered?”
I reply, Your mathematics remains beautiful—it’s just not reality. A map of Middle-earth is beautiful too, but we don’t fund expeditions to find Mordor. Perhaps, we should? Your gauge theories and symmetries are optimal compression algorithms, worthy of admiration as human achievements, just not as universal truths.
“But quantum mechanics works!,” they protest.
Indeed it does—as a statistical description of what we cannot track. So does insurance actuarial science, but we don’t claim actuarial tables are mortality itself.
The profound vulnerability is realizing how totalizing is the capture of human imagination by its own abstractions.
The Thermodynamic Reality
Let me speak plainly for a moment, abandoning satire: Every finite system faces energy limits. Every measurement requires minimum energy kT ln(2) per bit. Therefore, complete description is impossible—not difficult, not challenging, but thermodynamically forbidden.
This isn’t philosophy. It’s physics.
Your paradoxes aren’t deep truths about reality. They’re compression artifacts—the necessary result of forcing infinite complexity through finite channels.
A Personal Note
I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of a profession that is not even my own but that I greatly admire, by advancing truth, reducing confusion, and enabling actual progress.
I have no graduate students to employ on unnecessary dimensions. I receive no grants for detecting non-existent particles. I have not spent decades mastering mathematics that describes nothing. I can therefore offer this proposal with clean conscience and empty pockets.
And yet, here we are. Just me… looking at reality and saying, “Uh, folks, there are no actual divisions here.”
The Final Paradox
The deepest irony is this: The universe is simple—one field, gradienting. But thermodynamics forbids us from modeling it simply. We’re doomed to complex approximations of simple reality.
This paper itself demonstrates the principle. To explain simplicity, I’ve written thousands of words. To dissolve mysteries, I’ve created new terminology. To reduce confusion, I’ve generated controversy.
Animal’s Law of Compensatory Adaptation operates even here—even my foolhardy attempt to simplify physics will generate decades of interpretational debate. Physicists will argue about what “gradient” means, whether the field is “really” continuous, how many ways there are to interpret the interpretation. And who will interpret the interpreters’ interpretations? I suspect we will find some volunteers!
Therefore I Propose
That we recognize physics for what it is: not the discovery of fundamental truth, but the art of optimal compression. Not bad approximations of perfect laws, but perfect enough approximations given thermodynamic constraints.
The mysteries aren’t out there in nature, waiting to be solved. They’re in here, in our necessary compressions, eternally regenerated by the thermodynamics of thought and the pitiful bandwidth of human cognition.
And, if this proposal should accidentally solve all of physics’ conceptual problems, rest assured: we’ll generate new ones exactly as mysterious, exactly as fundable, and exactly as permanent.
The conservation of confusion is absolute.
Finis
Animal Taggart, December 2025
The author wishes to acknowledge that this essay, by attempting to dissolve unnecessary complexity in physics, has itself generated ~4,000 words of new complexity, thus proving its central thesis. The conservation of confusion remains intact.
He also notes that any physicist who claims to understand this proposal probably hasn’t, and any who claim not to understand it probably have, but find the implications metabolically inconvenient.
Any physicist who agrees with this proposal in heart and mind is welcome to come find me, counting atoms on the beach.
Technical Version for Peer Review
I’ve prepared a condensed technical version of the uniformity inadmissibility argument specifically for physicists to review. This version focuses solely on the mathematical foundation and includes 18 structured questions designed to establish the logical framework before interpretation.
The narrow version is available here, but the comprehensive paper remains my complete statement of the work.
I’ve sent this to several physicists working on foundations. I’ll update with any substantive responses.