The 44 Ladder: chemical-family recurrence in a mass-number arrangement of stable nuclides

The 44 Ladder: deposit v1.4

Title (v1.4). The 44 Ladder: chemical-family recurrence in a mass-number arrangement of stable nuclides

This version. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23994142. The concept DOI https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22093759 identifies the version series.

Supersedes. Version 1.3, published on 3 September 2026 (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22285464).

Version note

The census comprises the same 253 nuclides as v1.3. The revision extends the analysis and its interpretation.

The revision adds a smooth-valley row-cost analysis, an examination of residuals, and comparisons with forward semi-empirical mass-formula populations and screened NUBASE2020 evaluated masses. It supplies the four additional analysis scripts, their inputs, result tables and 23 tests.

The paired forward calculation gives 30 towers and exactly matches 27 of 31 observed family cells. The evaluated-mass beta/nucleon/alpha-rate screen recovers all 31 observed cells and the 29-tower count, but also adds one group-14 family cell on spoke 32. Recovering all observed cells does not mean an identical population or an identical complete family-cell pattern. The comparison uses 2,550 unflagged and 1,008 estimated mass entries and does not propagate mass uncertainties.

The text distinguishes forward construction from census-conditioned controls, reports mismatches, and describes the work as reconstruction of known data. It treats the span-preserving surrogate as a useful, tightly conditioned control. The smooth valley explains a scale near 44; it does not uniquely derive that integer. The residual pattern is consistent with shell effects but does not isolate their contribution uniquely.

The main text and supplementary material follow the v1.3 page design, typography and existing table formats. The first two manuscript figures retain the full spiral and conical helix. Larger lettering, darker rear labels and adjusted label positions make their details easier to read at page size. The original isotope labels, mass-number points and spoke geometry are preserved. Online Resource 2 provides enlarged vector copies of all seven plates. Figure S2 uses smaller lettering and a narrower rise area on the original 44-column grid. Table 8 and supplementary Table S4 report the nuclear-mass analysis. The two added alpha-decay references include DOIs, and the supplementary exercise distinguishes towers from family cells.

The complete v1.3 version note, including the history and withdrawn claims of versions 1.0 and 1.1, is reproduced in HISTORY-v1.3.md.

Deposit contents

The public manuscript is The-44-Ladder.pdf. SUPPLEMENTARY.pdf is Online Resource 1, and ESM_2.pdf provides enlarged vector plates as Online Resource 2. The ZIP includes the editable texts, the seven original plate designs, the software, the data and the archived calculation results. CONTENTS.txt identifies the components and MANIFEST.sha256 lists each archived file.

Status

Version 1.4 is a preprint dated 7 November 2026. The public correspondence address is the author’s ORCID record, https://orcid.org/0009-0007-2540-8079.