Toward a Principle of Significance

Сергей Юрьевич Матеров

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Toward a Principle of Significance

С. Ю. Матеров

2026-09-18

https://doi.org/10.24108/preprints-3116283

The principle of causality bounds what can influence a given point: nothing outside its past light cone. This note asks whether a complementary bound exists on what can be physically significant to a bounded observer - i.e. on the number of configurations that observer could, even in principle, operationally distinguish. We show that such a bound follows from Bousso's covariant entropy bound - a proved theorem of semiclassical general relativity - together with elementary one-shot quantum information theory, with no Banks-Fischler-type postulate anywhere in the derivation. Paragraph "Worked Example (Flash and blast wave). Why naive stage-summation overcounts historical significance - a concrete two-stage scenario" - has been added. GitHub Numerical Companion - has been added: https://github.com/SergejMaterov/Principle_of_Significance

Ссылка для цитирования:

Матеров С. Ю. 2026. Toward a Principle of Significance. PREPRINTS.RU. https://doi.org/10.24108/preprints-3116283

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