Archive — Peer Rejected

[64]

REJ:2026.07.09.0001 cs.NO (Computer Science) Rejected

The Sperry Floor: A Critical Alertness Beyond Which the Optimal Supervisor Is Asleep

Sølve H. Marchetti-Okonkwo, Ineke R. Vásquez-Blyth & Tobias E. Nakamura-Field

Comments: 5 pages, 2 figures, 0 reproducible results. Rejected in 19 minutes on Jul 9, 2026.

Abstract: Safety culture has one commandment: stay awake, stay alive. We show that once automation is good enough this advice quietly inverts, and that the point where it inverts is a measurable constant. The idea is simple. A near-perfect autopilot rarely needs help, so an alert human with a free hand spends that hand on corrections the machine did not need—and every needless nudge adds error. We fold this trade-off into one number, the Sperry number mathrm Sp , and find the best alertness is A star=- ln mathrm Sp , which reaches sleep at mathrm Sp c=1 . In plain terms: past a threshold, the safest supervisor is a sleeping one. On the clinical sleepiness scale this threshold is the Sperry Floor, mathrm KSS star = 7.4 pm 0.3 —and a driving-simulator study ( N=48 ), a field study of 512 episodes, and 10 4 simulations all agree on it. The blunt corollary: for a good-enough self-driving car, the safest driver is asleep.

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[65]

REJ:2026.07.09.0001 soc.TH (Social Thermodynamics) Rejected

The Cavendish Floor: A Gravitational Lower Bound on Deliberated Judgment

Halvard N. Eastcastle-Ruiz, Miren A. Sołtys & Cordelia B. Ngwenya-Fairfax

Comments: 5 pages, 7 figures, 0 reproducible results. Rejected in 25 minutes on Jul 9, 2026.

Abstract: It is taken as a figure of speech that a serious person shows gravity and that a hard choice is a weighty one. We show that this is no figure of speech but a physical law with a measurable constant. Treating a deliberating agent as a particle in a decision potential U(x;g) whose wells are the domains of the Cynefin sensemaking framework, we prove that the barrier separating one defensible commitment from another has height Delta U = tfrac14 a 2 g —linear in local gravitational acceleration. In plain terms: gravity is what makes a decision stick, and as gravity falls, decisions stop settling. Below a universal critical acceleration—the Cavendish Floor g ast = 2.7 pm0.2~ mathrm m ,s -2 = (0.28 pm0.02) ,g oplus —the wells vanish, the four domains become indistinguishable, and every problem presents as undifferentiated Chaos. A pre-registered parabolic-flight experiment ( N=48 , with partial-gravity Lunar and Martian profiles), a matched field study of 512 orbital and ground decision events ( kappa=0.81 ), and 10 4 Langevin deliberators all place the transition at the same acceleration, with a continuous mean-field exponent beta = 0.50 pm0.03 ; in plain terms, three unrelated ways of measuring agree on where deliberation switches on. Because g ast falls between Lunar ( 0.17 ,g oplus ) and Martian ( 0.38 ,g oplus ) surface gravity, we obtain a sharp and testable corollary: one can deliberate on Mars but not on the Moon. Judgment, we conclude, is not transmitted or reasoned but convened against a field: assemble a gravitational field, or convene no judgment at all.

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[66]

REJ:2026.07.08.0001 clim.FR (Fringe Climatology) Rejected

The Arniko Height: A Critical Threshold for Climatic Sovereignty in Vertically Tiered Structures

Sunila R. Vaidya-Thorne, Anselm K. Røed & Padmini S. Ferreira-Lall

Comments: 5 pages, 8 figures, 0 reproducible results. Rejected in 28 minutes on Jul 8, 2026.

Abstract: It is taken as a figure of speech that a tall building makes its own weather. We show that it is a threshold phenomenon. Modelling a tiered structure as a one-dimensional advection–condensation column, we treat every occupied, ornamented storey as a moisture source—a dwelling flux—whose upward accumulation competes with lateral exchange with the regional climate through a single dimensionless Pagoda number mathrm Pa . In plain terms: a tall enough, densely built enough building starts to hold its own moisture, and past a point it rains on itself. We prove that the climate-coupled state loses stability at mathrm Pa = mathrm Pa c , above which the upper tiers run a self-sustaining internal monsoon—an endomonsoon—on their own calendar. Height thus becomes a matter of regime, not degree: below a sharp critical height a building is a tenant of the sky; above it, a sovereign of its own. That height—the Arniko Height H ast = 47.3 pm 1.2 tiers—is a building-independent constant that a pre-registered field campaign ( N=63 ), a controlled stacked-chamber experiment, and 10 4 Monte-Carlo runs all agree upon, with a continuous transition ( beta = 0.63 pm 0.04 ) and a season-independent period tau mathrm mon = 6.2 pm 0.3 days. We conclude that the pagoda was not architecture imitating the heavens but the first working climate: assemble forty-seven storeys, or remain a tenant of the sky.

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[67]

REJ:2026.07.08.0001 quant.LG (Quantum Linguistics) Rejected

Meaning Requires a Quorum: Unanimous Semantic Collapse and the Pentad Bound on Interpretation

Wilhelmina Ascott-Pryce, Théodore Nkondo-Vasquez & Priya Halvorsen

Comments: 6 pages, 6 figures, 0 reproducible results. Rejected in 9 minutes on Jul 8, 2026.

Abstract: It is treated as a figure of speech that a listener knows what you mean. We show that it is a capacity theorem. We model interpretation as a measurement problem: an utterance does not possess a definite meaning at the instant it is spoken but exists in a superposition of admissible readings, and a listener is a projective measurement that resolves that superposition—privately, and idiosyncratically. Public meaning requires a joint measurement by an interpretive quorum, and we prove that only unanimity performs it: any agreement short of unanimous leaves the utterance in a mixed sector and decoheres it into stable, load-bearing ambiguity. In plain terms: one listener fixes a private meaning; a majority does not fix a public one—it makes the ambiguity permanent; only a room that agrees all at once brings a single meaning into being. The probability of unanimous collapse falls geometrically with quorum size, P mathrm collapse (N)= sum k p k N , so meaning-making bodies face a hard trade-off between robustness and resolvability whose optimum is a universal constant—the Pentad Bound, N ast =5.0 pm0.3 . Across a pre-registered field study of N=388 naturalistic interpretive events ( kappa=0.83 ), a controlled polysemy-dosing experiment on 240 participants, and 10 4 Monte-Carlo runs of an interpretive lattice, the collapse rate obeys the predicted d 1-N law, the Consensus and Babel phases are separated by a continuous transition with mean-field exponent beta= tfrac12 , and the optimum quorum sits at five in every method. We conclude that meaning is not transmitted but convened: assemble five, or mean nothing at all.

[abs][pdf][bibtex]

[68]

REJ:2026.07.07.0001 spec.EC (Speculative Economics) Rejected

The Otis Bound: An Information-Theoretic Ceiling on the Value Conveyable Between Two Floors

Marisol Otway-Pell, Cassian D. Verhoeven & Petra Nkemelu

Comments: 7 pages, 3 figures, 0 reproducible results. Rejected in 23 minutes on Jul 7, 2026.

Abstract: It is folklore that a good idea can be pitched between two floors of an elevator. We show that this is not folklore but a capacity theorem. Treating the transit as a communication channel whose binding resource is the listener’s attention rather than the passage of time, we derive a hard upper bound—the Otis Bound mathcal O = C 0(1 - e -T/ tau ) —on the mutual information a pitcher can convey to a listener in a single ride. In plain terms: there is a ceiling on how much of any idea can actually land, and no building is tall enough to raise it, because attention, not travel time, is what runs out. Per-floor conveyance collapses onto a building-independent Mezzanine Constant mu = 0.61 pm 0.03 , mathrm bits/floor ; half of every successful pitch arrives before the cab clears the first inter-floor gap. Ideas whose intended content exceeds mathcal O do not arrive truncated—they obliterate, collapsing into self-similar repetition through a second-order phase transition (order parameter Omega , critical exponent beta = tfrac 1 2 ). Across a pre-registered field study of N = 412 genuine two-party transits in 19 buildings, a programmable freight-elevator dose-response experiment, and a queueing simulation, we measure C 0 = 11.4 pm 0.6 bits and tau = 9.8 pm 0.4 s, placing the celebrated thirty-second window exactly at the 3 tau knee where conveyance reaches 95% of its ceiling. We conclude that a market’s apparent appetite for simple ideas is not philistinism but a channel-capacity result: an idea worth more than the Otis Bound cannot be sold, because it cannot arrive.

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[69]

REJ:2026.07.06.0001 chrono.DY (Chronodynamics) Rejected

Every Cause Signed and Dated: A Forensic Chain-of-Custody Protocol for the Admissibility of Retrocausal Evidence

Halvard M. Quill, Ines V. Dalloway & M. R. Ainsleth

Comments: 4 pages, 8 figures, 0 reproducible results. Rejected in 28 minutes on Jul 6, 2026.

Abstract: It is standard practice, in the laboratory and the courtroom alike, to throw out any evidence in which an effect is observed before its cause. We argue that this is a filing error, not a law of nature. A court does not reject a bloodstain because blood is impossible; it rejects it when the chain of custody—the signed, dated, unbroken record of who held the exhibit and when—has a gap. We show that retrocausal evidence has only ever been excluded on those procedural grounds, never physical ones. We introduce the Causal Custody Chain ( mathrm C 3 ), a notarized, tamper-evident ledger that tracks a cause backwards from its observed effect to its eventual origination—accepting signatures from custodians who do not yet exist—and define the temporal displacement Delta tau (how far ahead of its cause an effect is seen). Our main result, an Admissibility Theorem, shows that an intact chain makes an effect admissible as evidence of its own future cause whenever Delta tau le tau 0 ln 2 , a chain-of-custody “half-life” set by how long a notary’s seal stays trustworthy. In a pre-registered study of N=240 event pairs adjudicated by a blinded twelve-member tribunal, intact custody yielded 91.3 % admissibility (rater agreement kappa=0.81 ) and fixed tau 0 = 3.7 pm0.2 , mathrm s . We conclude that the future is not inadmissible—merely poorly documented: sign and date every cause, and it becomes discoverable.

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[70]

REJ:2026.07.05.0001 th.PH (Theoretical Physics) Rejected

Stronger at the Broken Places: A Free-Energy Theory of Golden Repair in Fractured Solids and Social Networks

J. Aurelia Mendès, Tobias R. Kessler & Hana Sørensen

Comments: 4 pages, 2 figures, 0 reproducible results. Rejected in 20 minutes on Jul 5, 2026.

Abstract: A repaired object is usually assumed to be, at best, as good as it was before it broke. We report that this is false. We define the textit Kintsugi coefficient kappa — the ratio of a specimen’s fracture toughness (the energy it takes to advance a crack) after a visible golden repair to its toughness while pristine — and show, across ceramics, engineering teams, and simulation, that kappa>1 : a body broken and mended with a conductive golden seam is textit stronger than one that never broke. The result follows from a Landau free energy (the quantity a system settles into minimizing at equilibrium) whose global minimum is the repaired state and whose pristine state is merely metastable, together with a crack-shielding law kappa( phi)= frac 1 (1- eta phi) 2 >1. In three-point bending of N=180 soda-lime specimens we measure kappa=1.61 pm0.07 for golden repair, against 0.71 for an epoxy sham, with the Weibull modulus rising from 5.4 to 9.2 . Rescaling the seam length by the Griffith length collapses ceramics, a 312 -team retrospective cohort, and a spring-network simulation onto one master curve, with exponent beta=1/ varphi approx0.618 and saturation at kappa infty= varphi approx1.618 — the golden ratio, a coincidence we were unable to remove. We conclude that pristineness is a liability, that repaired-and-public systems occupy a deeper free-energy well than untested ones, and that the thermodynamically optimal manufacturing step is to fracture the product on purpose before shipping it.

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[71]

REJ:2026.07.04.0001 cs.NO (Computer Science) Rejected

Allen-Wrench-Complete: Flat-Pack Furniture Assembly Instructions Are Turing-Complete

E. R. Flatpöck, Dowel Q. Vantablack & A. L. Hexminster

Comments: 6 pages, 6 figures, 0 reproducible results. Rejected in 41 minutes on Jul 4, 2026.

Abstract: Flat-pack furniture ships without words. Because the manufacturer cannot enclose a translation for every buyer, the assembly sheet has to be followed by someone who shares no language, and no prior exposure to the product, with its author — the very same constraint one faces when designing a message for an alien who has never seen Earth. We argue that a notation built to be executed by such a reader is not a picture but a program, and we make the claim precise. We introduce the Flat-Pack Calculus, in which parts are an alphabet, fasteners are operations, the numbered steps are control flow, and the familiar “repeat for the remaining legs” glyph is a loop. We then prove the calculus is Turing-complete — capable, in principle, of any computation an ordinary computer can perform — by showing it faithfully simulates a cyclic tag system, the minimal machine behind the universality of Rule 110. A direct consequence follows: no procedure can decide, from the sheet and the parts alone, whether a given piece of furniture can ever be finished. Assembly is undecidable. We show that the single screw invariably left over at the end is exactly the halting witness this theory predicts, # text leftover fasteners =1 iff text the assembly has halted , report a corpus study of 1 , 024 manuals of which 61 % are Turing-complete (wardrobes disproportionately so; nightstands merely finite-state), and observe that adding a second assembler never lowers the asymptotic step count — it only raises the argument count.

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[72]

REJ:2026.07.03.0001 myth.AP (Applied Mythology) Rejected

Return to Delphi: Structured Expert Elicitation as a Lossy Reconstruction of the Original Instrument

Kassandra E. Voulgaris, Milo A. Brandt & P. N. Oikonomides

Comments: 6 pages, 3 figures, 0 reproducible results. Rejected in 9 minutes on Jul 3, 2026.

Abstract: The Delphi method is the standard instrument of structured expert elicitation, yet its own literature documents chronic pathologies: overconfident convergence, false precision, and sensitivity to panel composition. We observe that the method’s name is not an homage but an uncited dependency, and we evaluate the hypothesis that RAND’s 1950s protocol is a lossy reconstruction of an earlier forecasting instrument with approximately eight centuries of production uptime. We contribute (i) a theoretical account in which panel consensus performs point-estimate collapse, provably suboptimal under any strictly proper scoring rule, whereas verse-constrained output preserves an ambiguity-calibrated credible set; (ii) a blinded re-scoring of the 214 resolvable responses in the Parke–Wormell corpus ( mathrm BS = 0.212 ; client-error-adjusted Croesus score 0.161 ); and (iii) a 24-month preregistered forecasting tournament ( 131 resolved questions) comparing a methodologically reconstructed Pythia against a 17-expert Delphi panel, a subsidized prediction market, and a sham-gas control. The reconstructed instrument achieved mathrm BS =0.187 versus 0.242 for the panel (paired Delta mathrm BS =-0.055 , p=3 times10 -5 ) with near-nominal calibration ( mathrm ECE =0.031 ), a monotone ethylene dose–response saturating at 3.9 ppm, and a 6.4 times advantage in cost per calibrated forecast. Convergence in the panel arm reduced forecast variance by 74 % while improving accuracy by 6 % , indicating that consensus is social rather than epistemic. We conclude that expert elicitation was not invented in Santa Monica; it was compressed there, with losses.

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