Nothing Matters
The personal science website of Kevin Donahue
In the beginning there was maybe.
This site is home to the Quantum Family Tree Theory — a proposal that spacetime geometry is not fundamental but emergent, arising from the genealogical structure of quantum entanglement.
The core idea is simple to state: distance is not where you are. It is how related you are. All particles share a common quantum ancestor. The family tree of that ancestry is spacetime. Particles that branched recently are close. Particles separated by many branch events are far apart.
From this one idea, with no free parameters, we derive an exact result: mutual information between two particles decays as exp(−α · d), where α = log(5/2) exactly. The geometry that falls out is hyperbolic. The holographic entropy formula appears naturally. The universe is lumpy because family trees are lumpy.
This is not a finished theory. It is an active research program. The math is real; some of the gaps are also real. Everything is stated as honestly as possible.
Where to start
The Idea — No equations. Just the concept.
The First Law — The exact analytic result: α = log(5/2).
Honest Gaps — What is not yet proved.
The Paper — The full document.