Zero Divisors as Signposts: A Transport Principle for Clifford Algebras, from Gravitational Singularities to a Candidate Theory of Everything

Division by zero is mathematics' most famous forbidden move. This paper takes the opposite view: in the algebras that most naturally describe spacetime - Clifford algebras - the failure of division is not a defect but a signpost: dividing by zero does not break the mathematics, it transports you to a larger, higher-dimensional algebra where the impossible operation finally makes sense. We prove three things about this ascent. It can never be achieved by repairing the offending element - no enlargement can single out a repair that is not an arbitrary choice: a no-go theorem. It can be achieved by enlarging the space of points instead, exactly as a geometer's blow-up repairs a singular point. And there is only one minimal way to do it: the enlargement is forced, not chosen. We then apply the idea to the singularity inside a black hole - physics' most famous division by zero. There the forced enlargement carries four-dimensional spacetime up to a six-dimensional geometry, landing, unprompted, on Penrose's twistor theory - and Einstein's equations for empty space were living there all along, as the statement that a single ideal point at infinity never changes. Along the way, the singularity acquires quantum ladder structure with no quantisation imposed; counting its modes reproduces the scaling of black-hole entropy; projecting back yields Hawking's radiation exactly - its temperature and both of its statistics - given a standard state; and the twistor match is an identity, not an analogy. The information paradox dissolves into a category error. Information is lost in four dimensions and preserved in six - the same physics read at two levels - the deficit a fixed algebraic projection whose shadow is the thermal Hawking flux; granted two structural axioms, the radiation's entropy follows the Page curve exactly. And gravity's own action emerges as a fifty-year-old construction completed - one that can exist only because the cosmological constant is not zero. Pressed to its end, the framework yields the Standard Model's algebra, content and charges - a candidate theory of everything, its one remaining number resolved into the date of the universe's own division.

Authors

Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-07-27
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21628840
Primary Topic
Algebraic and Geometric Analysis
Type
preprint
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preprint

Zero Divisors as Signposts: A Transport Principle for Clifford Algebras, from Gravitational Singularities to a Candidate Theory of Everything

L Butler
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Algebraic and Geometric Analysis
preprint

Zero Divisors as Signposts: A Transport Principle for Clifford Algebras, from Gravitational Singularities to a Candidate Theory of Everything

L Butler
preprint en

Abstract

Division by zero is mathematics' most famous forbidden move. This paper takes the opposite view: in the algebras that most naturally describe spacetime - Clifford algebras - the failure of division is not a defect but a signpost: dividing by zero does not break the mathematics, it transports you to a larger, higher-dimensional algebra where the impossible operation finally makes sense. We prove three things about this ascent. It can never be achieved by repairing the offending element - no enlargement can single out a repair that is not an arbitrary choice: a no-go theorem. It can be achieved by enlarging the space of points instead, exactly as a geometer's blow-up repairs a singular point. And there is only one minimal way to do it: the enlargement is forced, not chosen. We then apply the idea to the singularity inside a black hole - physics' most famous division by zero. There the forced enlargement carries four-dimensional spacetime up to a six-dimensional geometry, landing, unprompted, on Penrose's twistor theory - and Einstein's equations for empty space were living there all along, as the statement that a single ideal point at infinity never changes. Along the way, the singularity acquires quantum ladder structure with no quantisation imposed; counting its modes reproduces the scaling of black-hole entropy; projecting back yields Hawking's radiation exactly - its temperature and both of its statistics - given a standard state; and the twistor match is an identity, not an analogy. The information paradox dissolves into a category error. Information is lost in four dimensions and preserved in six - the same physics read at two levels - the deficit a fixed algebraic projection whose shadow is the thermal Hawking flux; granted two structural axioms, the radiation's entropy follows the Page curve exactly. And gravity's own action emerges as a fifty-year-old construction completed - one that can exist only because the cosmological constant is not zero. Pressed to its end, the framework yields the Standard Model's algebra, content and charges - a candidate theory of everything, its one remaining number resolved into the date of the universe's own division.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
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Algebraic and Geometric Analysis
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