What if the fundamental constants of nature are not arbitrary numbers, nor mysterious inputs to the laws of physics, but operational parameters of an ongoing process? In our earlier paper, The Fine-Structure Constant as a Threshold for Physical Reality, we argued that the fine-structure constant α should be understood not merely as an electromagnetic coupling, but as a write-efficiency threshold: it governs how readily microscopic quantum activity becomes stable, distinguishable, and classically persistent structure. In that view, α controls whether events merely occur — or whether they successfully register as part of physical reality’s enduring record.
In parallel, our paper The Two-Planck-Length Resolution of the Cosmological Constant re-examined the meaning of Λ. Rather than treating it as a direct measure of vacuum energy, we showed that Λ naturally arises as a capacity limit — a bound on how much distinguishable information can exist within a causal patch of the universe. By grounding Λ in horizon structure and information bounds, that work reframed the cosmological constant as a bookkeeping constraint on accessible reality, rather than a problematic sum of zero-point energies.
The present paper, Runtime Signatures in Dimensionless Constants, shows that these two ideas converge into a single picture. When the maximum possible rate at which distinguishable events can be produced (bounded by quantum dynamics) is compared with the finite information capacity set by cosmological horizons, the explicit dependence on Λ cancels out completely. What remains is a single bottleneck: the commit-to-bit process — the promotion of transient quantum activity into durable, globally accessible record. By modelling this process as a multi-stage, electromagnetically mediated registration cascade, we find that its success probability is exponentially suppressed as exp(−K/α). Remarkably, inserting the observed values of α and Λ yields K ≈ 0.67 — an order-unity constant, not a finely tuned one — which reproduces the observed smallness of Λ without invoking anthropic selection or vacuum-energy cancellation.
If this picture is correct, it suggests something profound about reality itself. The universe is not simply a static mathematical object governed by timeless equations, but an ongoing runtime process with finite memory, finite throughput, and irreversible updates. The fine-structure constant sets how efficiently reality can write itself into existence; the cosmological constant sets how much of that written history can be retained. Their values are not arbitrary — they are structurally linked. In this view, the smallness of Λ is not a mystery to be explained away, but a signature of how rarely the universe successfully commits fleeting quantum activity into permanent, cosmically relevant record.