A Framework for a unified GR/QM model

Introduction

Disclaimer: This is an interpretive framework, not a replacement for existing equations. It is also intended to be entirely grounded in scientific observations and testable hypotheses. Though novel descriptions and naming conventions may require referencing existing concepts, nothing claimed by this framework has any relationship to non-scientific claims or beliefs.

Originating Thought Experiment

“What if dimensions were both ontological binaries and physical fields?”

Imagine that each dimension functions simultaneously as:

1. An ontological switch — either a degree of freedom(a property or differentiation) exists or it does not, and

2. A physical field — extending throughout reality, exerting constraint or allowance much like pressure, density, or viscosity.

To visualize this, consider the layered structure of Earth’s atmosphere. Each layer is not merely a boundary but a field with its own density, pressure, and behavior. Objects moving through the atmosphere do not experience “air” as a discrete thing, but as gradients that shape motion, resistance, and energy transfer.

Now extend this analogy:

• Instead of atmospheric layers, imagine layers of dimensional freedom.

• Instead of altitude, imagine degree of differentiation.

• Instead of pressure gradients, imagine folding gradients.

In this thought experiment, dimensions are not abstract mathematical scaffolding imposed after the fact. They are real, global fields that can thin, compress, and collapse. When a dimension “folds,” it is analogous to a layer of atmosphere becoming denser and eventually merging into the layer below it—removing a degree of freedom while redistributing structure laterally.

Crucially, this collapse is binary at the ontological level (a degree of freedom is either available or not), but continuous at the physical level (the process of loss unfolds gradually and unevenly). This dual character allows dimensions to define both discrete constraints (what is possible) and continuous dynamics (how structure evolves).

Under this model:

• Time emerges as the ordering of irreversible dimensional closures.

• Entropy reflects the loss of independent degrees of freedom rather than mere statistical disorder.

• Forces and interactions arise where folding proceeds unevenly, forcing structure to redistribute within remaining dimensions.

• Nonlocal quantum behavior becomes possible when lower-dimensional modes persist without full integration into spacetime’s dimensional constraints.

The core insight of the thought experiment is that if dimensions are treated as active, collapsing fields rather than static background parameters, then gravity, quantum behavior, thermodynamics, and cosmological expansion can all be understood as different observational slices through the same universal process.

Overview

This framework proposes that the fundamental driver of physical phenomena is a continuous, irreversible dimensional folding in which higher-dimensional structure collapses into a lower-dimensional unity state. What appear in existing theories as separate mechanisms—spacetime gravity, motion, quantum behavior, heat, radiation, and cosmological expansion—are reinterpreted as different projections of how structure redistributes laterally as dimensional “volume” is steadily removed. General Relativity emerges as the geometric description of uneven folding rates, quantum phenomena arise from partially stabilized lower-dimensional modes not constrained by spacetime locality, and thermodynamics reflects the smoothing of folding gradients rather than purely statistical behavior. Light occupies a more fundamental role than matter, existing as a lower-dimensional propagation mode relative to which massive objects move.

The model integrates the successful predictive frameworks of GR, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and thermodynamics without replacing their mathematics, but provides a unifying explanatory system that clarifies why their structures take the forms they do. Its key departures are the rejection of spacetime as fundamental, the treatment of entropy and time’s arrow as consequences of irreversible dimensional loss, and the interpretation of forces and interactions as manifestations of geometric retiling rather than fundamental exchanges. The explanatory benefit is a single organizing mechanism that naturally links gravity, nonlocal quantum correlations, horizon thermality, cosmic expansion, and irreversibility—domains that are currently connected only indirectly in standard physics.

Relation to String Theory

Conceptually, this dimensional folding model shares with string theory the idea that observed particles and interactions emerge from deeper-dimensional structure rather than being fundamental themselves, and it similarly treats quantization as arising from allowed modes under geometric constraints. Both frameworks view mass spectra, coupling behavior, and unification as consequences of how higher-dimensional degrees of freedom are organized and constrained. However, the dimensional folding model differs sharply in ontology and intent: it does not posit extended fundamental objects (strings or branes), compact extra spatial dimensions, or a vast landscape of vacua. Instead, it proposes a single monotonic, irreversible dimensional collapse as the organizing principle, with dimensions representing degrees of differentiation rather than hidden spatial directions. The explanatory advantage is parsimony and interpretive clarity: rather than encoding physics in specific higher-dimensional geometries, the model seeks to explain gravity, quantum nonlocality, thermodynamics, and cosmology as different projections of one universal folding process, potentially reducing the need for multiple independent postulates.

Descriptions and Explanations

This site is intended to grow and evolve over time as the model is applied to describing observed physical phenomena. One important point moving forward is that, due to the nature of dimensions as proposed by this framework, the descriptions used here are meant to represent a single perspective on the behavior of a dimension, particle, matter, energy, or interaction.

In many cases, two or more perspectives of the same underlying behavior will be presented in order to build a more complete picture of how components of the model interact. These perspectives may appear to describe very different behaviors, but they are always describing processes that occur simultaneously within dimensional space.

For example, consider someone throwing a stone into a pond. From the thrower’s perspective, the pond is initially still and flat; the stone breaks the surface, disappears beneath the water, and produces ripples that spread outward and gradually smooth away. From the perspective of a fish within the pond, a foreign object abruptly enters its environment, causing sudden displacement, turbulence, and distortion as it sinks toward the bottom.

Descriptions of this kind will be used throughout the site to illustrate the dual—or multi-perspective—nature of many dimensional folding mechanics, where different observational frames reveal different aspects of the same underlying process.

Next Steps

If this framework interest you, please feel free to develop it further and share with the wider scientific community. Progress on mathematical and testable proofs of this framework are a top priority, and discovery credit should be shared freely with anyone who contributes to that goal. If you would like to have your extensions of this framework shared directly on this site, please submit through the ‘contact’ portal.