The Law of Zero Effects

── Toward Absolute Relativity Without Origins

Zero never existed.
It is not a point.

(1) Zero never existed.

Physics has long assumed the necessity of zero points: a fixed origin in space, a state of rest, a privileged observer, or a synchronized reference frame. These zeroes were not introduced as hypotheses, but as conveniences—points from which measurement, comparison, and prediction could proceed smoothly. Yet as physical description has grown more precise, these zeroes have revealed a peculiar property: none of them can be located without remainder. Every attempt to fix a zero produces residual mismatch, delay, or curvature. This paper identifies this persistence not as a failure of theory, but as a structural fact. Zero does not fail to appear; it never existed. What appears instead are zero effects—traces left by irreversible relational updates when no absolute origin is available. From this observation, we introduce a minimal notion of Absolute Relativity, in which relations update without delay, yet inevitably generate relative lag as an absolute structural consequence.

(2) Zero Effects

The concept of zero effects emerges when relational generation is taken as primary and synchronization as secondary. In any system where relations update irreversibly, no global alignment can be maintained across all interactions. What is commonly interpreted as delay, force, or uncertainty is instead the record of this misalignment. Crucially, this lag is not a temporal postponement of an otherwise simultaneous process. Each update occurs fully and locally. The lag appears only at the level of relation—when updates are compared, composed, or projected. In this sense, lag is neither accidental nor eliminable. It is the minimal residue of relational existence itself. Absolute Relativity does not deny relativity; it asserts that relativity persists even when no preferred frame, observer, or origin is assumed.

(3) Favored Zero

Zero, in this framework, is not an element of reality but a favoured reading—a syntactic choice that simplifies comparison by suppressing relational mismatch. Origins, rest frames, and reference points function as provisional anchors that allow relations to be linearized, averaged, or idealized. Their utility is undeniable, but their status is derivative. They do not generate structure; they summarize it after the fact. Absolute Relativity is defined minimally by this reversal: relations are primary, and any zero is secondary. Updates occur without delay in their local enactment, yet when relations are composed, an unavoidable relative lag appears. This lag is absolute in the sense that it cannot be transformed away by any change of frame, and relative in the sense that it exists only between relations. Absolute Relativity thus names the condition in which irreversibly updating relations produce zero effects without ever requiring a zero itself.

(4) Space–Time

Within Absolute Relativity, space and time are not pre-given continua but composite records of relational updates. What is conventionally treated as a space–time manifold emerges when multiple relations are composed and their relative lag is stabilized into a readable structure. Spatial extension reflects the accumulation of non-coincident relational enactments, while temporal order reflects the irreversibility of their updates. Space–time, in this sense, is neither container nor background. It is a syntactic surface on which zero effects are inscribed as continuity.

(5) Curvature

Curvature arises when relative lag cannot be globally smoothed by any favored reading. Rather than signaling the presence of force or attraction, curvature marks the localization of unrecoverable relational mismatch. Where updates cannot be jointly aligned, their composition bends the syntactic surface that reads as geometry. Curvature is thus not a property imposed on space–time, but a residual pattern produced by relational updating itself. In Absolute Relativity, curvature names the persistence of zero effects under repeated composition.

(6) Measurement

Measurement fixes lag into history. To measure is to select a projection that stabilizes relational mismatch into a recordable outcome. The apparent uncertainty of measurement reflects the non-commutativity of these projections: different orders of fixation preserve different residues of lag. Probability distributions, accordingly, represent not ignorance of an underlying state but the cost structure of inscription—how relational updates can be compressed without eliminating their mismatch. Measurement does not disturb a pre-existing reality; it renders zero effects legible.

(7) Bridge to Syntactic Askew Way (SAW)

The framework developed here does not introduce new entities, forces, or dynamical laws. It merely reorders what is taken as primary. This reordering constitutes what we call the Syntactic Askew Way (SAW). Rather than confronting established theories head-on or proposing a paradigm shift, SAW adopts a slight syntactic tilt: synchronization is no longer assumed, zeroes are no longer privileged, and relations are read askew. From this perspective, phenomena traditionally treated as distinct—orbital motion, gravity, inertia, and quantum uncertainty—appear as different inscriptions of the same structural feature: irreducible relational lag. SAW thus functions not as a competing theory, but as a minimal reorientation that renders already-known structures mutually legible.

(8) Toward a Re-reading of Einstein

This askew reorientation clarifies both the achievement and the limit of Einstein’s space–time formulation. By abandoning absolute space and time, relativity theory correctly displaced fixed backgrounds in favor of relational description. However, it retained a privileged role for observers, reference frames, and locally synchronized coordinates. These functioned as favored zeroes—necessary for calculation, but syntactically overburdened. Absolute Relativity extends Einstein’s relational insight by releasing this final privilege. No observer, frame, or origin is required to ground physical description. What remains is not relativism without structure, but structure without zero. In this sense, Absolute Relativity is not a rejection of Einstein’s theory, but its continuation beyond the point where favored zeroes silently re-entered the formalism.

── Zero is not the origin, but an effect.

SAW-04｜Einstein Revisited: Favoured Zeroes and the Limits of Observer-Based Relativity— From Space–Time Geometry to Absolute Relativity
SAW-04｜アインシュタイン再訪──その原点と限界：観測者ゼロと相対性理論の構文的限界

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| Drafted Jan 16, 2026 · Web Jan 16, 2026 |