Two Absolute Zeros: An Essay in the Philosophy of Physics

This essay examines the concept of physical "absolute zero" across three domains: thermodynamics, electromagnetism, and gravity.

Absolute zero temperature (0 K) is the energetic terminus where all thermal motion ceases – an asymptote that can be approached but never reached. The speed of light (c) is a different kind of boundary: a constitutive constraint for massless waves, implying zero rest mass, zero spacetime interval, and zero proper time. Unlike 0 K, c is not an asymptotic limit but a state always attained by massless objects.

Does gravity possess its own separate zero? Candidates include the event horizon, the Planck length, and flat space. The essay argues that in general relativity, gravity requires no third zero because it is geometry itself – the stage, not an actor.

However, under the Multipolar Time Hypothesis (TSV), the question reopens. In TSV, time is a dynamical stream of possibility impulses, and gravity becomes a relation between geometry and that stream. The event horizon then appears as a zero of absorptive symmetry – not a zero of energy or geometry, but a zero of isotropy.

The essay concludes with an open question: whether the asymmetry between the two known zeros (0 K and c) is complete or merely provisional, depending on what gravity ultimately turns out to be.