3.14 Horizon Consistency Without Inflation: Far-Field Isothermality with Variable Light Speed

Home ／ Chapter 3: Macroscopic Universe

I. Phenomenon and Puzzle

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is strikingly uniform at large angles: sky regions that could not have communicated appear to share nearly the same temperature. Under the intuition that light speed is fixed everywhere, those regions lacked time to exchange heat or phase information, yet their acoustic phases line up cleanly.

Traditional resolutions invoke a brief, extreme geometric stretch—inflation—to bring distant zones into past contact. However, that requires an extra driving field and a graceful exit. We seek a material-first reason that naturally yields far-field thermal and phase coherence without inflation.

II. Mechanism (Energy Sea + Variable Light Speed)

Core idea: light speed is not a single, epoch-independent constant across cosmic history; it is a local propagation upper bound set by tensorial tension in the medium. In the earliest, high-density and high-tension state of the Energy Sea, this local bound was higher. As the universe relaxed, the bound fell. Far-field isothermality and phase coherence can then arise along a physical chain that does not depend on inflation.

1. High-Tension Stage: Raising the Local Speed Limit

• When tension was extreme, relay-like transport became highly efficient and the propagation upper bound rose substantially.
• Consequently, within the same physical time, the causal radius expanded. Heat and phase information crossed comoving distances that later look “super-horizon,” establishing broad thermal balance and phase locking in time.

2. Cooperative Refresh: Network-Style, Blockwise Alignment

• High tension did more than speed things up; it enabled blockwise “redraws” across a tension network. When a strong event triggered a region, surrounding patches refreshed in sync at locally allowed speeds.
• This network cooperation stirred coherence from points to patches to wide areas—not by geometric over-stretch, but by the medium’s own tension and propagation properties.

3. Relaxation and Freeze-In: Carrying the Plate Forward

• As dilution proceeded, tension and the local bound declined. The photon–baryon fluid entered its acoustic compression–rebound era.
• At last scattering, the previously established thermal and phase coherence was photographed into the Cosmic Microwave Background “plate.” Thereafter, photons free-streamed and delivered that plate to us.

4. Where Finer Structure Comes From

• Tiny early fluctuations were not erased; they seeded the acoustic peaks and troughs.
• Later, line-of-sight terrain and Statistical Tensor Gravity (STG) gently softened and re-textured the patterns, producing the observed anisotropy fine structure.
• Crossing evolving large volumes—such as the cold-spot direction—adds achromatic path red/blue shifts. These are mild edits to the plate, not wholesale recoloring.

Key point: local invariance, cross-epoch variability. Any small-scale experiment measures the same local upper bound, while on cosmic timescales the bound’s value can differ by epoch. That temporal room enables “stir first, then freeze.”

III. Analogy

Tighten a drum skin to the extreme, strike once, then release to normal tension. With the skin ultra-tight, ripples race outward and large areas snap into a common beat. After you relax the skin, ripple speeds fall, but the global in-sync pattern remains. The Cosmic Microwave Background reflects a similar sequence: establish widespread thermal and phase agreement before decoupling, then freeze it in.

IV. Comparison with the Standard Picture

1. Shared Aims: Explain far-field equal temperatures, clean acoustic phases, and enough time for early coordination.
2. Different Routes:

• Inflation: a rapid geometric stretch that makes once-adjacent regions end up far apart today; it needs a driver, a potential, and an exit.
• Variable light speed (tension-set bound): a high-tension stage raises the local propagation limit and network coordination speed so distant regions align within ordinary cosmic time, without extra geometric stretch or new fields.

3. Compatibility and Distinctions: A geometric narrative can re-express early consistency, but a medium-first narrative does not delegate everything to geometry. Observationally, achromatic path effects and tension-linked timing shifts are natural diagnostics here.

V. Conclusion

Reframing horizon consistency in the language of the Energy Sea and tension:

• A high-tension epoch raised local propagation bounds and, with network cooperation, allowed far regions to align in temperature and phase.
• Subsequent relaxation and decoupling froze that alignment into today’s Cosmic Microwave Background.
• No inflation is required: not “pulling space apart” geometrically, but letting information move faster locally when tension was high.
• Therefore, far-field isothermality is not a miracle; it is a natural early-time expression of tension-governed, variable light speed in the medium.