The frame rate of reality

If the universe is a contiguous elastic fluid, RSI argues, its baseline frequency cannot come from an external clock. It must follow from how waves move through the tensioned medium.

Two limits define that motion. The first is the speed of tension. In any string or fluid, a wave travels at a speed set by tension and density. In the EC, this maximum speed is the speed of light, about 3 × 10⁸ m/s. The second is the structural grain. Although the fluid is unbroken, it has a minimum bending radius: the Planck length, about 1.616 × 10⁻³⁵ m.

A wave cannot flow perfectly smoothly through such a medium. Each time it crosses one Planck length, the fluid completes one cycle of tension and release. Dividing c by the Planck length gives about 1.85 × 10⁴³ cycles per second. RSI calls this the frame rate of reality, the literal heartbeat of the universe.

The values 1.616 × 10⁻³⁵ m and 1.85 × 10⁴³ Hz are present values, the same everywhere at any one time. RSI proposes that over the cycle the tightest fold of the medium grows finer and coarser, so that the heartbeat quickens and slows (Chapter VI). Every clock is a count of these beats, and every ruler is made of knots that tighten with the fold, so no local measurement can detect the change: in every era the Planck length and the heartbeat measure the same. The change appears only against light that has travelled freely since long ago, and that comparison is the cosmological redshift.