The Benzene Snowflake: Informational Constraint Theory and the Falsification of Substrate Emergent Crystal Geometry

A compact, fully reproducible computational study showing that directional informational routing, encoded in an anisotropy kernel A(θ), can override substrate molecular symmetry to determine macroscopic crystal habit. The canonical FreezeMachine run (seed 42) replaces benzene’s native anisotropy with a sixfold projection and produces a sharply faceted hexagonal plate (f6≈0.947). Full deposit summary This deposit contains the complete reproducibility bundle for the Benzene Crystalline Plate experiment implementing the Informational Constraint Framework (ICF). The canonical computational experiment replaces benzene’s native orthorhombic anisotropy kernel with a sixfold projection A(θ)=1+ϵ6cos⁡(6θ), producing a sharply faceted hexagonal plate despite benzene’s molecular symmetry favoring orthorhombic packing. The bundle includes the canonical regeneration script (regen.py) and a checksum‑verified plain‑text copy (regen.py.txt), canonical .npz outputs (including C_field and Topology_Mask), zoom arrays, diagnostic logs, plotting cells used to generate Figures 1 and 2, and a manifest with SHA‑256 fingerprints for byte‑level verification. An optional notebook wrapper (FreezeMachine_canonical_v1_seed42.ipynb) is included for inspection only; the canonical execution path is the script regen.py. Contents (representative) regen.py — canonical regeneration script (one‑command pipeline) regen.py.txt — checksum‑verified plain‑text copy freeze_run_seed42.npz — canonical scientific arrays (C_field, Topology_Mask, sixfold_fraction, dt_summary) freeze_zoom_seed42.npz — zoom arrays for Figure 2 Figure1_freeze_seed42.png Figure2_freeze_seed42.png Figure2_freeze_seed42_improvedC.png Figure2_AB_zoom_skeleton.png freeze_outputs_bundle.zip — complete regenerated artifact bundle manifest_freeze_runs.csv — manifest (see Manifest and Verification below) regen_log.txt — run log FreezeMachine_canonical_v1_seed42.ipynb — optional notebook wrapper Version 2.0.0 supersedes the earlier Benzene Snowflake deposit and provides a fully revised manuscript, corrected filenames, and a complete reproducibility bundle. The deposit includes the canonical regeneration script (regen.py) and checksum‑verified plaintext (regen.py.txt), canonical .npz arrays and zoom files, updated figures, diagnostic logs, plotting cells for Figures 1–2, and a manifest with SHA‑256 fingerprints. All outputs were regenerated deterministically with seed 42; this release is the authoritative reproducibility package. AI disclosure and license guidance AI disclosure: Microsoft Copilot assisted with code organization and editorial refinement; all scientific decisions and analyses were made by the author. License: include the LICENSE files in the deposit (e.g., MIT for code; CC‑BY 4.0 for manuscript and data) or state the chosen license explicitly in the Zenodo metadata. Note: This manuscript is a preprint and has not undergone peer review. Part of the unified conical informational framework.