economics Paradigm Challenge

The most important number describing the birth of our universe is not a random variable, but a fixed value dictated by the laws of cause and effect.

April 25, 2026

Original Paper

Why the Tensor-to-Scalar Ratio Is Not Free: A Causal Prediction from CETΩ

Christian Balfagon

SSRN · 6395418

The Takeaway

Astronomers have long searched for the tensor-to-scalar ratio, a number that tells us how much the fabric of space wiggled during the Big Bang. Standard models assumed this number could be almost anything, but this new theory predicts it must fall within a very specific, narrow window. This claim makes the theory falsifiable, meaning if our next generation of telescopes finds a different number, we will know our current model of the universe's origin is wrong. It replaces a vague tunable parameter with a hard prediction based on the causal structure of time itself. This moves the study of the Big Bang from guessing possibilities to testing a specific, undeniable truth.

From the abstract

We show that in the Causal-Informational Completion of Gravity (CETΩ) the tensor-to-scalar ratio r is not a free inflationary parameter but a causal observable fixed by the retarded analytic structure of the gravitational kernel. Requiring the kernel to admit a Stieltjes representation with positive spectral density ρ(µ) ≥ 0 implies a ghost-free modification of the linearized dynamics that acts as a causal memory filter for primordial tensor modes, universally suppressing tensor fluctuations and