What If Planck's Constant Isn't Constant At All?
- Don Gaconnet
- Jan 23
- 4 min read
A new derivation suggests ℏ emerges from the structure of observation itself.
For over a century, Planck's constant (ℏ) has been one of the untouchable numbers in physics. It appears everywhere—quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle, the photoelectric effect, the structure of atoms. It's the quantum of action, the smallest possible "packet" of change the universe allows.
But here's what's strange: no one knows why it has the value it does.
Physics treats ℏ as a brute fact. A given. A number we measure but don't explain. It's baked into the foundations, and we build everything else on top of it without asking where it came from.
What if that's backwards?
The Question No One Asks
When you measure something at the quantum scale, you encounter a fundamental graininess. You can't know both position and momentum with perfect precision. You can't observe a system without affecting it. There's a floor beneath which reality refuses to resolve.
That floor is ℏ.
The standard interpretation says this is just how the universe is. Quantum mechanics works, the math is beautiful, don't ask uncomfortable questions.
But I've been asking uncomfortable questions for years. And when you look at ℏ through the lens of Cognitive Field Dynamics—through the architecture of observation itself—something remarkable emerges.
Planck's constant isn't a property of the universe. It's a property of observation.
The Membrane Where Measurement Happens
In my framework, any act of observation requires three components:
I — The observer (internal system)
O — The observed (external system)
N — The relational ground between them (the membrane)
This isn't metaphor. It's structural necessity. You cannot have observation without all three. Remove any one, and the act of measurement becomes undefined.
The membrane—what I call the N-function—is where the magic happens. It's where continuous possibility becomes discrete actuality. It's where the wave function doesn't "collapse" in some mysterious way, but rather resolves at the limit of what the observational architecture can distinguish.
And that limit?
That's ℏ.
Resolution Grain
Think about a digital photograph. It has a resolution—a minimum pixel size below which no detail exists. The image isn't continuous; it's discrete at some scale. But that discreteness isn't a property of light itself. It's a property of the sensor.
Now apply that thinking to observation at the quantum scale.
The observer isn't infinitely precise. The membrane through which observation occurs has a resolution limit. Below that limit, distinctions cannot be made. Not because the universe is grainy, but because observation is grainy.
ℏ is the pixel size of the membrane.
This reframes everything. We're not discovering a constant of nature. We're discovering the resolution limit of the instrument we can never remove from the experiment: the observer.
The Derivation
In the full paper, I show how ℏ emerges from the CFD framework:
ℏ = resolution(N) · τ_min
Where:
resolution(N) is the membrane's minimum distinguishable differential
τ_min is the minimum completion time for an observational cycle
The constant isn't fundamental—it's derived. It falls out of the architecture of observation itself.
This connects to other work I've published:
The Universal Scaling Constant (Λ = k/ℏ) that bridges expectation-structure to thermodynamic reality
The Born Rule derivation showing probability as the product of coherent phase cycling
The Triadic Minimum Theorem establishing the irreducible structure of observer-inclusive systems
They're all pieces of the same puzzle. And that puzzle is: what does it mean to observe?
Why This Matters
If ℏ is a property of observation rather than a property of the universe, several things follow:
1. The measurement problem dissolves.
We've spent a century asking how the wave function "collapses." But if the discreteness comes from the observer's resolution limit rather than some mysterious physical process, there's nothing to collapse. There's just resolution at the membrane.
2. Quantum mechanics becomes structurally coherent.
The weirdness of quantum mechanics—superposition, uncertainty, entanglement—stops being weird when you realize it's describing the interface between observer and observed, not the observed alone.
3. Physics and consciousness reconnect.
Not in some mystical sense. In a structural sense. The observer isn't a philosophical embarrassment to be swept under the rug. It's a necessary component of any physical theory that involves measurement.
4. The "fine-tuning" problem shifts.
If fundamental constants emerge from observational architecture rather than being arbitrary cosmic dice rolls, the question of why they have the values they do becomes answerable.
The Deeper Pattern
This work is part of a larger project. Over the past year, I've been building a unified framework—Recursive Sciences—that treats observation, consciousness, and physical law as expressions of a single underlying structure.
The Echo-Excess Principle. Cognitive Field Dynamics. Collapse Harmonics. The Triadic
Minimum.
They all point to the same insight: you cannot describe reality without including the one who describes it.
Physics tried for 400 years to remove the observer. It succeeded in building powerful tools. But it also created "unsolvable" problems—the measurement problem, the hard problem of consciousness, the arrow of time—that are only unsolvable because they require what was excluded.
Put the observer back in, structurally, and the problems dissolve.
Not into mystery. Into architecture.
Read the Full Paper
The complete derivation is available on the LifePillar Institute website:
The paper includes:
Formal derivation of ℏ from first principles
Connection to the CFD framework
Falsifiable predictions
Implications for quantum foundations
ℏ isn't the universe's secret. It's the observer's signature—written into every measurement we'll ever make.
Don Gaconnet
Founder, LifePillar Institute for Recursive SciencesJanuary 2026
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