ARPI Insight

The Confusion Engine

How zero broke physics — and why a boundary-based view restores coherence.

How Zero Broke Physics

For over a century, physics has been trying to solve paradoxes of its own making:

Singularities, infinities, information loss, vacuum decay, dark energy, renormalisation headaches, wavefunction collapse, and the perpetual war between general relativity and quantum mechanics.

We have treated these contradictions as deep mysteries of the universe. But what if they are not mysteries at all? What if they are mathematical artefacts born from a single, flawed assumption?

That assumption is Zero.

Zero: The Artificial Abyss

In human mathematics, zero was invented as a bookkeeping convenience. In nature, however, there is no such thing as a true zero field.

There is always:

• a minimum vibration

• a residual coherence

• a non-vanishing background

• a living substrate of information

Physicists search for “the vacuum state,” yet the vacuum has never been found.

What is found is a fluctuating sea of energy, structure, and coherence — the opposite of zero.

When we place zero into our equations, we create a hole in reality.

And physics has been falling into that hole ever since.

Infinities: The Children of Zero

Wherever zero appears, an infinity soon follows.

• Zero radius → infinite density

• Zero time → infinite frequency

• Zero volume → infinite energy

• Divide by zero → undefined

The universe does not produce infinities.

Mathematics does. And it does so because it insists on using zero as a foundation.

Thus the infamous “singularity” at the centre of a black hole is not a physical object —it is a calculation error.

The Vacuum Catastrophe: A Zero-Based Misreading of Reality

Modern physics claims the vacuum has:

• zero particles

• zero structure

• zero information

Yet it also assigns the vacuum a non-zero energy density so enormous that if it were real, the universe would have torn itself apart billions of years ago.

This contradiction — called the vacuum catastrophe — is one of the worst predictions in scientific history. It exists only because we forced reality into a zero box that never existed.

Zero Disrupts Coherence

Coherence — the organising principle of the universe — requires smooth continuity and minimum thresholds.

Zero introduces a discontinuity:

• a hard boundary

• a perfect emptiness

• a total absence

Nature does not do boundaries this way. It softens, gradients, harmonises, transitions.

Zero is a human fiction that fractures the natural coherence the universe actually uses.

Quantum Mechanics and Relativity Cannot Unite Under Zero

The great puzzle of modern physics — the failure of general relativity and quantum mechanics to reconcile — emerges from their shared dependence on zero-based structures:

• point particles

• zero-length strings

• zero-volume singularities

• zero-point vacua

• zero denominators hidden in tensors and operators

Zero makes unification mathematically impossible.

Change the substrate — replace zero with a minimum resonant baseline — and the equations begin to speak the same language.

Black Holes: Paradox by Zero, Not Paradox by Nature

Black holes are the most extreme victims of the zero error.

Treating the core as “volume = zero” forces:

• infinite curvature

• infinite density

• infinite temperature

• information loss

This is why brilliant physicists like Hawking, Strominger, Pasterski, and others spend their careers trying to “patch” the contradictions:

• soft hair

• holographic screens

• BMS symmetries

• entanglement wedges

• firewall debates

All of these patchwork frameworks attempt to fix a problem that zero itself created.

Remove zero, and the paradox evaporates.

What Nature Actually Does Instead

Instead of zero, Nature uses:

• A Minimum Resonant State

The lowest possible vibration — not nothing, but something extremely small.

• A Persistent Background Field

Information is not stored in particles but in coherence patterns within the field.

• Soft Boundaries

No hard edges.

No perfect emptiness.

No discontinuities.

• Gradients, Not Gaps

Reality flows; it does not fracture.

Zero fractures - Resonance unifies.

The Path Forward: Repair the Foundation

Physics will continue generating confusion until it recognises the structural damage caused by zero-thinking.

The next paradigm begins by replacing zero with:

The Minimum Resonance — the lowest possible state of the field that remains coherent, continuous, and information-bearing.

This shift resolves:

• singularities

• infinities

• vacuum contradictions

• information paradoxes

• and the incompatibility of current theories

The universe becomes intelligible again.

ARPI’s Contribution

At ARPI, we explore and articulate this new substrate:

• replacing zero with resonance

• replacing emptiness with coherence

• replacing discontinuity with continuity

• replacing paradox with pattern

Physics has not collapsed — it has simply been built on the wrong floor.

A new foundation allows the entire structure to stand.

Zero broke physics - Resonance will heal it.