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Discreteness as a Resolution Artifact: Why "Smallest Particles" Miss the Point (or There Never was a Smallest Particle Except by Necessity or Compulsion)

Authors: Gunn, Nathon;

Discreteness as a Resolution Artifact: Why "Smallest Particles" Miss the Point (or There Never was a Smallest Particle Except by Necessity or Compulsion)

Abstract

This preprint argues that “smallest particles” are not a necessary endpoint of nature but a consequence of finite resolution in observation and representation. Discrete entities are treated as stable outcomes that arise when continuous structure must be rendered into recordable, comparable terms. On this account, “smallest” is not a discovered terminus; it is an artifact of the constraints under which descriptions become operational. The paper also notes that discreteness becomes difficult to define in isolation because many of the categories we rely on are those that persist across observers and contexts—i.e., what can be agreed upon, reused, and stabilized. The goal is interpretive clarification rather than a claim of a specific implementation: to reframe what “particles” are doing in our models and why the search for an ultimate smallest unit may be aiming at the wrong target.

Keywords

geometry, crossdomain synthesis, field theory / fields, Particle, perspective, continuum, scale invariance, x-pollination, shape, intersubjectivity, renormalization, philosophy of physics, quantization as measurement artifact, emergence, discretization, cutoff scale / UV cutoff / infrared (IR), rate change, toppology, symmetry, perspective shifting, lattice / lattice models, foundational interpretation, Physics, crosspollination, discreteness as a resolution artifact, coarse-graining, Outsider Perspective, effective theory / effective field theory (EFT), observer dependence, retrospective alignment, coordinate invariance, scale dependence / multi-scale modeling, convention vs reality, measurement, no smallest particle, cross-pollination, resolution-stabilized events

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
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Average
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