Time as a Sequence: From Gluon Plasma to the Non-Singular Star

A three-part hypothesis monograph proposing that time is an ordered sequence of phase transitions of matter, and that gravitational collapse may end in a singularity-free "Non-Singular Star" rather than a black hole. Speculative; static stability tests of the stellar model are given in the companion thin-shell monograph. Abstract This monograph collects three papers on one hypothesis: time is not a static background coordinate but the sequence itself, an ordered chain of phase transitions and structural transformations of matter, from gluon–quark plasma to chemistry and back. Each stage of the sequence has its own tempo, and gravity is proposed to be able to slow, stop or reverse it, with the accumulation of gluons suggested as the mechanism. The end of the sequence is not a singularity but a Non-Singular Star formed from one "package" of mass (about 2.8 M⊙), a configuration stabilised by anisotropic stresses in a thin shell. The work is a conceptual hypothesis; no observational confirmation is claimed, and the possible signature is limited to gravitational-wave echoes.