Processing systems need fundamental processes as particle systems need fundamental particles. Every CPU has a set of fundamental processes that it can do, called its command set. For example, if “add one” is such a process, it adds a hundred by adding one a hundred times. As computing evolved to include databases and networks, the command set got bigger and bigger, so it was called Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC). Only recently was it realized that fewer fundamental processes are better because they run faster and there is less to go wrong. The result was Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC), and the ultimate RISC design is one process that does everything. The command set of the quantum network seems to be exactly that, based on the process:
Set the next value in a circle
This process, to set values in a circle, is now proposed to underlie our universe, starting with space and light. It is reliable because each cycle ends where it began, ready to run again. If it runs at a point, its positive and negative values cancel to give a null result that can be space. If it runs at right angles to a surface, it is a transverse circle that is passed on as the sine waves of light. One process can then represent empty space or light, based on values set in a circle of neighbors.
According to quantum theory, quantum waves spread step by step at the speed of light, then collapse to restart at a point when they hit a screen. The quantum model (Figure 2.15) explains this odd behavior as processing waves spreading on a network, generated by a server that restarts them as needed. A photon, as a simple quantum wave, is then the above process distributed over the points of its wave length. Hence, longer wavelength light has a lower frequency because distributing a process runs it slower, just as dividing a workforce makes each job take longer to complete.
In Figure 3.11, one fundamental process generates the entire electro-magnetic spectrum, depending on how it is distributed. Divided it between a few points gives short wavelength light with a high frequency, while divided it over many points gives long wavelength light with a low frequency. Light, in all its forms then arises from one process, divided more or less, spreading on the quantum network. Note that this process isn’t physical, and it merely sets values, just as complex number theory says.
In the figure, one fundamental process (1), is distributed or divided (2), between few or many client points (3), to give electro-magnetic waves (4), that are passed on at the speed of light (5). It is a rotation that spreads as a sine wave, and can divide more or less to give any electro-magnetic wave. Shorter wave lengths divide it less, so each point runs faster, while longer wave lengths divide it more, so each point runs slower.
As the process spreads, each new point begins that process, but those at the front of the wave are just starting as those at the rear are finishing. Each network cycle, the photon spreads to new points, leaving those behind to run to completion. As new points begin, others finish, so the total server demand per photon stays the same. Every photon in the electro-magnetic spectrum, whether a radio wave or an X-ray, is then the same process distributed more or less. This fundamental process is also the null process of space, so light is, in effect, space distributed being passed on.
The smallest process the quantum network allows is then a Planck process, just as the smallest distance and duration it allows are called Planck length and Planck time.