For over a century, physics has treated time as a kind of invisible river flowing in the background of the universe. We measure it with clocks, we feel it pass, and gravity even bends it—but time itself has always been assumed to exist.
But this new paper proposes something far bolder: time may not be fundamental at all. Instead, time might emerge from tiny informational events called ticks.
This idea is called Ticks Per Bit, or TPB, and it represents a major step forward in the broader Bit Conservation and Balance (BCB) framework we have been developing. Where BCB explains how information behaves—how bits are created, moved, and stabilized—TPB explains where time comes from in that informational universe.
How TPB extends the BCB vision
BCB revealed that the universe is built not from particles, fields, or geometry, but from distinguishable bits of information. These bits can’t appear or disappear without balance, and they shape everything from particle masses to the structure of matter itself.
TPB asks the next natural question: What does it take to form one of these bits and how does this create time?
And the answer turns out to be profound.
Every bit takes many microscopic attempts—tiny “ticks”—before it stabilises. The number of ticks required is the local TPB value. In calm, flat spacetime, bit formation is easy and TPB is low, so time moves quickly. In deep gravity wells, bit formation becomes difficult, TPB rises, and clocks slow down.
This reframes gravity in a stunning way:
not as curvature imposed on spacetime, but as a gradient in how hard it is for the universe to create new information.
What TPB adds to BCB
TPB gives BCB something it didn’t have before:
1. A mechanism for emergent time
BCB already described the conservation of information.
TPB now describes the tempo of information.
Time becomes the accumulated count of completed bits.
2. A link between information and gravity
BCB explained matter.
TPB explains why gravity affects time—because gravity controls how difficult bit-formation is.
3. A foundation beneath BCB itself
If bits are the basic units of distinguishability, TPB shows that ticks are the basic units of change.
This gives BCB a pre-temporal substrate.
4. A resolution to the continuous-time paradox
BCB operates on discrete information.
TPB shows why time must also be discrete at the deepest level—continuous time would require infinite information, infinite energy, and infinite computational capacity.
5. New predictive power
TPB naturally reproduces Einstein’s time-dilation formula without assuming curved spacetime.
It predicts how clocks behave near gravity, at high velocity, or near horizons—all from informational first principles.
Why this matters
The deeper message is simple and powerful:
BCB explained what the universe is made of.
TPB explains how the universe unfolds.
Together, they form a unified picture:
- Ticks → build
- Bits → which obey
- BCB → whose flows create
- Time → whose gradients become
- Gravity
This is the first time a fully consistent, information-first framework has produced:
- emergent time
- emergent gravity
- finite information bounds
- consistency with quantum behaviour
- and a natural explanation of relativistic effects
all from the same underlying structure.
A new way of seeing reality
TPB suggests something radical yet intuitive:
The universe doesn’t happen in time.
The universe creates time, one bit at a time.
And because TPB strengthens the foundations laid by BCB, it moves the entire framework closer to a true, unified description of reality—one based not on spacetime as a background stage, but on information as the primary substance of existence.