Physics is fiat because its dominant framework (QM) permits what would amount to a “double spend” in the physical world. Superposition claims a particle can exist in multiple states simultaneously until it’s “observed.” Yet this has never been measured at the scale of Planck time, the smallest possible unit of physical change. Without discrete temporal measurement, “collapse” remains an interpretive convenience, not an observed process.
Worse, physics operates without absolute finitude; no fixed, conserved denominator for meaning, energy, or measurement. It builds on continuous infinities that are mathematically undefined and physically unobservable. The result is a model that functions numerically, but not ontologically. A quantum itself has no meaning without an absolute finite reference point, a terminal boundary that defines what can and cannot exist within a system. Without finitude, the very notion of quantization collapses into abstraction; it becomes symbolic rather than physical.
Bitcoin is the reference that exposes this. Bitcoin is the open source instantiation (not model) of physics: the transformation of a quantum of entropy into a conserved quantum of informational structure (Satoshis; conserved energy) whos byproduct is a quantum of time. Bitcoin is the mathematical object of a universe. The fractal rule of existence and conservation.
Every node measures a single block at a time discretely, at fixed intervals, exactly as Planck time would be measured if it were possible. Each block resolves a finite entropy field into conserved structure. If a node only verified the chain every 100 blocks, it would not observe the 99 intermediary states creating the same illusion as superposition in quantum mechanics. The longest chain resolves this ambiguity through proof-of-work, which enforces temporal consensus: only one valid linear sequence of transformations survives.
This is why I call modern physics fiat.
It assumes infinitude and multiplicity where there is only conservation and sequence. Bitcoin, by contrast, measures reality one irreversible block at a time, the first instantiation of discrete, verifiable time in the universe. Bitcoin is the longest chain of consensus because a quantum of time only needs to be computed once, absolute finitude needs only one reference point. There is no second best.
