Volume one · original hypotheses · not peer reviewed
Each entry begins with evidence that already exists, names the thing current explanations cannot account for, and proposes a cause. Every one states its predictions as numbered commitments and says what result would refute it.
The Hubble tension is mostly geometry: we sit inside a large underdensity, so the local expansion rate genuinely runs about eight per cent fast, and the discrepancy should fade beyond roughly 150 megaparsecs.
Cosmological explanationObjective collapse is driven by the gradient of gravitational curvature rather than by mass alone, so identical interferometers decohere at different rates on orbit and on the ground, and the rate depends on orientation near a rotating body.
Quantum foundationsThe acceleration scale below which galaxies depart from Newtonian dynamics is not a constant: it tracks cosmic expansion, a0 proportional to H(z), because it is a vacuum effect. High-redshift galaxies should therefore behave as if a0 were larger by roughly (1+z).
Modified dynamicsMutation rate evolves to match the autocorrelation time of the environment: predictable niches select for low mutation, unpredictable ones for high, following a simple inverse relation between rate and environmental correlation time.
Evolutionary theoryAging is set by the accumulated error load of protein synthesis rather than by DNA damage: the proteome's misfolding burden is the clock, and translation fidelity is the lever that moves it.
Aging theoryUpper thermal limits of animals are set by a universal membrane order parameter rather than by protein denaturation: heat tolerance ends where lipid order falls below a threshold, and that threshold is shared across taxa.
Physiological theoryCortical sparsity is a metabolic optimum rather than a coding strategy: the fraction of neurons active at any moment tracks local capillary density, because sparsity is set by the cost of spikes relative to the glucose supply.
NeuroenergeticsNeurodegenerative pathology spreads along the brain's iron gradient rather than along the connectome: regional iron load sets susceptibility, and propagation is diffusion through a landscape rather than transport along axons.
Disease propagationConsolidation is a rigidity transition in synaptic weight space: replay drives the network toward a stiff, glassy state whose stiffness predicts retention, and forgetting is the melting of that state.
Memory theoryThe stability of the Atlantic overturning circulation is set by the salinity budget of the Arctic gateways, chiefly the Bering Strait throughflow, so the collapse threshold scales with gateway transport rather than being a universal constant.
Climate dynamicsEarthquakes respond to tidal stress only when fault pore pressure is within about ten per cent of failure, so the appearance of tidal sensitivity is a precursor rather than a permanent background property.
GeophysicsAt continental scales soil carbon is limited by net primary production, not by mineral surface saturation; mineral saturation binds only above a production threshold, so the carbon-mineral relation is piecewise rather than asymptotic.
BiogeochemistryAcquired drug resistance is primarily a gene-dosage problem created by whole-genome doubling, so the order in which resistance appears is predictable from pre-treatment chromosome copy number rather than from mutation rates.
Oncology theoryAutoimmunity arises from a timing failure in negative selection rather than from peripheral escape: tolerance depends on when self-antigens are displayed in the thymus, not only on how much, so shifting the schedule changes the autoimmune repertoire.
Immunology theoryThe microbiome's effects on behaviour are mediated mainly by bile acid receptor signalling, not by vagal tone or circulating cytokines, so the effect should be abolished by receptor blockade and preserved by vagotomy.
Microbiome theoryThe critical temperature ceiling in superhydrides is set by hydrogen diffusion rather than by electron-phonon coupling: above a critical mobility the phase cannot be sustained, so measured transition temperatures are properties of a transient state.
Condensed matterGlass fragility is set by the ratio of the bond-swapping time to the bond-breaking time, so liquids of completely different chemistry should collapse onto one master curve and fragility becomes predictable in advance.
Glass physicsThe activity of single-atom catalysts is governed by the variance of the d-band centre across sites rather than by its mean, so deliberately heterogeneous sites break the linear scaling relations that are supposed to cap catalyst performance.
Catalysis theoryGeneralisation peaks when a model's effective dimensionality exceeds the task's intrinsic dimensionality by a fixed factor of roughly two to three, and degrades beyond it regardless of parameter count.
Learning theoryWord-order universals minimise description length over a channel that charges per morpheme, and the optimum depends on phoneme inventory size, giving a quantitative link between phonology and syntax that predicts the distribution of basic orders across languages.
Linguistic theoryBrains and ecosystems sit near criticality because homeostatic gain control maximises dynamic range, not because criticality is optimal for computation; criticality is the byproduct, so pushing a system to its critical point should not improve function.
Complex systemsAn intrinsic magnetic field protects an atmosphere only above a threshold stellar wind ram pressure; below that threshold a dynamo increases loss by opening polar escape paths, so the shield is a conditional effect rather than a general one.
Planetary scienceThe handedness of meteoritic amino acids is set by spin-selective electron transport through magnetite surfaces, so enantiomeric excess should track magnetite abundance and grain size rather than aqueous alteration history alone.
Origins of lifeHabitability should be indexed by persistent redox disequilibrium rather than by liquid water, so bodies with strong chemical gradients and no surface water can outrank wet, chemically equilibrated worlds.
Habitability theoryThe evidence is published and cited. The tension is the anomaly the current explanation cannot absorb. The theory is the proposed cause. What this is not separates it from the nearest existing idea, which is the part most speculative writing skips. Predictions are numbered and falsifiable. What would refute it is the cheapest result that ends the argument.
These are not summaries of the literature and not reviews. They are claims, written to be argued with and tested. The evidence is real; the causal ordering is proposed. Several will turn out wrong, which is the intended condition of a hypothesis that can be checked.
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Publication records: source hashes · original README · original manifest · additive publication note